Universiẗat, Diss u.d.T.: Erdmann, Mark-Ken: Supply chain performance measurement unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Balanced-scorecard-Ansatzes--Zugl.: Dortmund, 2002. / Literaturverz. S. [297]-360.

Motivation: Previous research has shown that the focal firm’s supply chain leadership styles could have an impact on the outcome of green supply chain management. However, previous studies of focal firms, such as multinational corporations, have shown that many govern their supply chains through an indirect approach, which needs further research due to the lack of research in the combination of different supply chain leadership and followership styles. Previous research has also indicated that little research has been done on barriers to green supply chain management from the supplier's perspective, especially concerning the followership style and governance mechanism. The context of the study is in the electric-automotive industry, and more specifically, on an original equipment manufacturer's multi-tier supply chain, where the increased use of printed circuit boards has shown to have a tremendous negative impact on the climate. Purpose: The study set out to investigate how supply chain leaders and followers, together with their respective styles and governance mechanisms, are cascading green sustainability throughout the printed circuit board’s multi-tier supply chain. An additional purpose is to find out the barriers to green supply chains from the suppliers’ perspective. Methodology: The study takes a qualitative approach with a single case study design. Further, the different members in the OEM's multi-tier supply chain were interviewed with a semi-structured interviewing method, and respondents were found by a snowballing technique. Finally, the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded and thematized in NVivo. Findings: Interesting findings showed that all supply chain members used an indirect approach as the governance mechanism, which led to the suppliers simultaneously assuming both a leadership role and a followership role. Further, contrasting to previous research was that all the closest tier one suppliers assumed an opposite followership style than the OEM’s leadership style; however, what partly confirms previous research is that the supplier’s leadership style was the same as the OEM. In addition, interesting behavior from the tier two suppliers showed that they assumed a different leadership and followership style than the tier one, which was discussed as a potential reason that the tier one suppliers have lesser influence than the OEMs. Lastly, several barriers to reaching green supply chains were discovered. One of the most problematic was the transparency barrier, which complicated collaboration further down the multi-tier supply chain. Another finding indicated that the use of third-parties could harm the motivation of the followers.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent Amanor-Boadu / Cargill Animal Nutrition is a global manufacturer and distributor of animal nutrition products. They operate in the United States through 6 separately managed regions that control a number of facilities throughout the entire United States. Cargill Animal Nutrition Southeast Region manages a network of eleven plants and two warehouses in the southeast part of the United States. The purpose of this thesis is to explain the current supply chain design including the relationships that exists between facilities, analyze the costs associated with the current design and relationships, and assess the feasibility of alternative designs of supply chain strategies available. A brief description of each facility along with production characteristics specific to each facility is given. Due to certain production characteristics, dependent relationships exist between certain plants. These relationships create restrictions to which our supply chain is subject. Other relationships are not as rigid and thus can be manipulated in pursuit of lowering overall supply chain costs. The model resulting from this thesis will facilitate the assessment of the feasibility of these changes. There are many costs associated with the supply chain; however, costs included in this analysis are limited to the costs that could vary when changing suppliers. The price of the product, transportation costs, and certain warehouse fees deemed relevant to this research are applied to the expected annual sales tons to reach a total cost of supply chain considering the assumptions made. The base scenario was defined according to known facts regarding the current design of our supply chain, which included identification of suppliers, supplier prices, transportation costs, and associated handling/warehouse fees, as well as determining the quantity of product that would need to flow throughout our supply chain. Then the total cost associated with the current supply chain design was assessed according to our analytical model. Once the total cost of the base scenario was determined, comparison to alternative scenarios could take place. Changing the relationships between locations of the supply chain results in alternative scenarios to which the analytical model and decision rule developed can be applied to determine feasibility of the alternative supply chain designs. Operating within the confines of the research, the total cost of the current supply chain design was determined to be $15,697,426. That total cost then serves as a base figure which can be used in comparison with the overall cost of alternative scenario #1. Scenario #1 resulted in a total cost of $15,447,597 – an annual savings of $249,828. Scenarios #2 through #4 were evaluated against the total cost of scenario #1. The total cost of scenario #2 is $15,421,364 which results in annual savings of $26,234. Scenario #3 results in a total supply chain cost of $15,347,888 which equates to annual savings of $9,710 in comparison to scenario #1. The final scenario in this study results in a total cost of $15,443,547. The annual savings generated by scenario #4 in comparison to scenario #1 are $4,050. The results indicate that there are alternative configurations of Cargill Animal Nutrition’s Southeast supply chain that can be developed to increase the competitiveness of operations and improve operational excellence through cost savings. These results are used to inform management in the implementation of the new goals that have been established for the organization. Further utilization of the tool developed will result in increased knowledge of the costs associated with supply chain design. This will allow the company to be able to understand the cost of their supply chain so they can benefit from decreased supply chain costs by reacting to changing market factors.

Purpose – The aim of this research is to explore the benefits and barriers of integrating EMS to SCM in Sandvik Tooling. While exploring that, it is intended to gain insights into the methods employed to integrate the systems and find out the type of integration used in practice. Design/methodology/approach – Explorative case study method is employed in this research paper. Primary data is obtained through semi-structured interviews and observations. Triangulation, respondent validation, peer review are the principal strategies employed to ensure validity and reliability of this study. Findings – Sandvik Tooling employed a composite view of integration in which verbal and documented forms of information exchanged together with novel solutions to provide integration throughout supply chain on the basis of common goals and vision, shared values and resources. Integration is provided with a balanced mixture of interactions and collaborations. Benefits of integration are categorized as environmental, economic, and organizational benefits. On the other side, barriers are presented as internal and external barriers. Practical Implications – This research paper has significant practical contributions to businesses with presenting the ways to integrate and analyze these two systems and demonstrate barriers to overcome and benefits to take advantage of. Originality/value – Environmental management systems and supply chain management topics received considerable interest among researchers in recent decades. However there is a lack of research about how these two systems can be integrated and what kind of integration will best define this integration type. Analyzing barriers and benefits of integration process will also advance and contribute our knowledge in this research area.

Cement Industry in Ethiopia is an emerging industry where only few pioneers were regulating the market. The complacent conditions have led them to be driven by transactional suppliers relationships, not that much customer focused, energy sources and environmental issues were not to the level required and information communications infrastructures and linkages were not that much developed. However, this oligopoly nature of the market is starting to vanish soon as a lot of national and multinational firms are appearing into the market. Accordingly, this report would identify the level of perception of organization on the general issues of supply chain management, mainly suppliers partnership, customer relationship, environmental issues and information communication; analyze their level of impacts and relationships on the competitive position of Cement Factories in Ethiopia.

The main topic of this thesis is to study the connection between Service Supply Chain Management (SSCM) and Customer Satisfaction (CS). The study is based on the factors of SSCM for receiving CS and its implementation.One of the major contributions to the connection between SSCM and CS has been the awareness to flexibly and efficiently manage logistics and deliver to the end user in time and at the same to achieve an increased brand image/reputation for the company. SSCM is an essential part of a company's inventory management and it's supply chain. On the other hand, CS is an integral part of a business as making consumers content and meeting their requirements is crucial for a business' survival. SSCM and CS are inextricably linked.In this thesis, Walmart has been used as the case for the authors to carry out the research. Because of the unique feature of the Chinese retail market, the Chinese retail market has been also discussed as the business background of Walmart. The first-hand data has been offered from interview by E-mail and social website to the staff of Walmart and 90 feedbacks of questionnaire. The literature review and qualitative analysis have been used to analyze the case for research. The importance of SSCM in dealing with CS and its implementation has been explored in this thesis.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) is an evolving discipline, and incorporates the environmental and social performance dimensions of sustainability with the traditional measure of economic performance; current SSCM research indicates a skew towards economic performance and its interaction with environmental performance, while social performance is underrepresented (Pagell and Wu, 2009, Schaefer, 2004, Sharma and Ruud, 2003). The UK clothing industry represents a relevant research focus due to its supply chain complexity, and scale and scope of its environmental and social impacts; this thesis further recognises the tendency for academic research to focus on Large Enterprises (LE) (Curran and Blackburn, 2001) and investigates how SSCM is implemented in UK SME clothing supply chains to understand how and why they address economic, environmental and social performance and the potential contribution to developing the SSCM concept. An inductive case study methodology is employed and the research focuses on 4 UK clothing SMEs with primary data collection a series of semi-structured interviews, supported by observation, company documentation and archival data. Three theoretical lenses are applied and the findings indicate that SMEs manage their supply chains for sustainability in ways that strongly align with their specific characteristics and apply a greater emphasis on long-term, trust-based and mutually beneficial supplier relationships. A rich view of SSCM practice in SMEs is developed, which reflects the more intangible and human components of sustainability and supply chain relationships, and how these can be harnessed to achieve firm specific commitments. This thesis fulfils an identified need to study how sustainability is addressed in SME supply chains within a single industry; SSCM research to date has focused on large organisations and multiple industry perspectives. It contributes to knowledge in both the SSCM and SME research fields by identifying key gaps within the combined literature, critiquing sustainability models and developing a conceptual framework from the findings, which aims to embed social performance and offer a more integrated approach to SSCM in this context.

Bakgrund: Tillväxten i den svenska e-handelsmarknaden har under de senaste åren ökat och i takt med detta ökar e-handelsföretagens returer. Ehandelsföretagen ser ofta returprocessen som ett onödigt ont och som en kostsam post. Därför har företagen oftast inga utarbetade strategier för att effektivisera returprocessen ur konsument- och kostnadssynpunkt. Segmentet heminredning och möbler är ett av segmenten som har haft kraftigast tillväxt under det senaste året, vilket leder till att returer gällande skrymmande produkter har ökat. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att bidra till kunskapen om hur svenska ehandelsföretag inom heminredning och möbler i deras returprocess arbetar med avvägningen mellan kundnöjdhet och kostnadseffektivitet. Metod: Studien har utgått ifrån en kvalitativ metod med en abduktiv ansats. För att samla in empiri har vi genomfört en dokumentstudie samt två fallstudier gällande returprocessen hos två e-handelsföretag inom segmentet heminredning och möbler. Slutsatser: Enligt studien arbetar de två studerade e-handelsföretagen utifrån olika returstrategier gällande kundnöjdhet och kostnadseffektivisering. För att förhindra en returprocess samt skapa kundlojalitet vid en returprocess har vi genom studien kommit fram till att information om både produkten och returprocessen är en vital faktor.

The main proposition of this study is to examine Volvo Powertrain's procurement ofproduction equipment in order to find solutions that can prevent delays in futureprocurements. The conditions of the case leads to the theoretical field of supplierdevelopment, which emphasizes the advantages of closer collaborations between thebuying company and their supply chain. Through focus groups with Volvo-personneland interviews with supplier representatives, a step-by-step examination is made ofprior procurement projects. The knowledge generated from the examination is theninterlaced with theory concerning supplier development, which results in a line ofconclusions of Volvo Powertrain’s procurement process and the possibilities to takesupplier development into consideration for future procurements. Finally,recommendations to Volvo Powertrain is provided in the form of an updatedprocurement model called Volvo Equipment Procurement Model.

Med detta examensarbete vill vi utveckla kunskaper om hur logistikaktiviteter utförs hos ett företag med en varierande efterfrågan. Vidare vill vi presentera en arbetsmodell samt ge förbättringsförslag som kan minska eller eliminera företagets upplevda problem vad gäller ledtider, leverantörsrelationer och servicenivå kontra kapitalbindning.   Med stöd av genomgången litteratur har en arbetsmodell utformats till företaget. primärdata till kartläggning och analys av nuläget har insamlats genom observation av och intervjuer med personal på servicedepån i Gävle.   Efter genomförd nulägesbeskrivning identifierades problemområden. Dessa områden handlar om varierande ledtider, låg synlighet, bristfällig kommunikation, långa transportsträckor samt för låg kapitalbindning för att hålla utlovad servicenivå till kund.    Genom metoder och verktyg i arbetsmodellen kunde grundorsakerna till problemen identifieras och tre förbättringsförslag utformas. Det första förbättringsförslaget handlar om att utveckla befintliga leverantörsrelationer för att uppnå förbättrad synlighet och kortare ledtider i försörjningskedjan för upparbetade artiklar. Om det första förslaget inte är genomförbart föreslår det andra att vidga sitt leverantörsutbud och genom det säkerställa att utlovad servicenivå uppnås. Det tredje och sista förslaget handlar om att företaget ska förbättra sin interna lagerstyrning och genom det uppnå minskat beroende av leverantörers pålitlighet.      Resultatet av examensarbetet påvisar på hur relationerna i en försörjningskedja påverkar det enskilda företagets vardagliga arbete och lagerstyrning. Examensarbetet styrker tidigare forskning gällande kopplingen mellan servicenivå och kapitalbindning. Dock måste dessa bestämmas och utformas i förhållande till hur befintliga relationer i försörjningskedjan fungerar. / The purpose with this study is to create knowledge about the logistic activities within a company with varying demand. To present a work model and give suggestions for improvements that could lead to more effective supply chains in order to lighten or eliminate the problems that the company experience in the area of lead times, supplier relations and service levels versus capital bindings.   With support from the reviewed literature has an working model been constructed for the company. Primary data for the mapping and analysis of the present flows have been collected through observations and interviews with staff at the service depot in Gavle.   The status report identified problem areas. These areas are about varying lead times, low visibility, inadequate communication and long transport distances. We also find out that the capital binding currently is too low to hold the promised level of service to customers.   Through methods and tools within the working model could the main cause to the highlighted problems be identified and suggestions for improvement presented. The first suggestions for improvement is about develop the existing supplier relations to achieve improved visibility and shorter lead times in the supply chain for accumulated articles. If the first suggestion isn´t feasible, is the second suggestion that the company should aim to expand their supplier selection and by that ensure that they achieve the promised level of service. The third and last suggestion is that the company should try to improve their internal inventory control and through that achieve less dependence on the reliability of the suppliers.  The result of the thesis demonstrates how the relations in a supply chain affect the inventory control for the individual company. The thesis proves the previous research about the connection between service level and capital binding. These two need to be decided and formed with the relations of the existing supply chains in mind.