Adapting from System Dynamics methodology for model building and simulation, this paper provides a structural and systematic approach toward analyzing the actual operations of Vendor Managed Inventory in fastener supply chain and constructs application steps for implementation. Optimum replenishment parameters of VMI model are established through scenario designs, dynamic simulations, parameters tuning and key performance index measuring. Four key findings are: (1) VMI model is able to reinvent the competitive advantage of an enterprise and enhance the competitiveness of the entire industry; (2) the key success factor of VMI is acquisition and integration of the dynamic information over the supply chain; (3) the efficiency and effectiveness of VMI operation can be enhanced through dynamic modeling and parameter tuning; (4) Systematic modeling approach provide feasible methodology in solving real world VMI problems.

For most of organizations initiating IT projects to improve the business performance, they could possibly face an opportunities lost and spend a huge project cost resulting in losing competence in making profit simply due to IT project failure. The senior managers in the organization need fully understand what kind resources and capabilities are required for the project team to ensure the success. As value proposition addressed by ASP (application services provider), Software as a Service or on-demand application, it will allow organizations to only focus on the business needs and redesign the cross-functional and cross-organizational processes. Also the IT project could quickly show its striking value in a shorter time frame by outsourcing the technical works to application service provider. In other words, ASP business model provide customers a new choice to access the system services via the internet. These solution providers not only develop the product and upgrade roadmaps but also operate and maintain the systems on behalf of the customers. It¡¦s also a method for the customers to enjoy the latest technology and professional services in an economical way. The value of this research work is to analyze how the senior managers of the enterprise making the choices over different alternatives under the organizational constraints comprising successful stories, personal own experiences and used operational practices in the past. A case study of B2B supply chain collaboration project is used to revisit the managers¡¦ assumptions and elaborate how these organizational constraints are exercised in the project evaluation, decision and implementation cycle based on a generic evaluation and decision framework of B2B collaboration solutions. This report intends to provide some insight and suggestions for the senior managers to take advantage of the opportunities and advantage, like the Software as a Service or On-demand applications, enabled by the internet world. An optimized decision can be possibly achieved only if the managers are aware of the invisible organizational constraints.

Abstract The situation of the world varies from minute to minute, and the market of the traditional industry changes fast also. Many parameters occur which challenge and strike against the highly polluted, low profit textile and dyeing-finishing industry. For instance, the issue of the global warming keeps spreading influence the whole world such as American and Europe to place more attention on the ecological environment. Second, the lack of the energy and natural resources raise the prime cost. Next, the opportunity the World Trade Organization (WTO) gives to the trade market forms a more competitive international relationship around the world. The difficulties and the threat the textile and dyeing-finishing industry meets urge the industry to find their way out. They should analyze the industrial structure and the international benefits, and find an alternative proposal and key success factor to create the competitive edge of their own. Furthermore, the best choice among all the solutions is that the industry should catch the world wave, producing environmentally friendly green product and devoting to lower the emission of the carbon dioxide (CO2¡^ during the producing process. This decision can not only lower the prime cost and earn more profits for the enterprise but also promote the corporate image. Moreover, when talking to establish the goal of reforming strategy, the enterprise should strengthen the integration of the inner and outer resource. Through the cluster model of the industrial structure they can support each other, forming the best green supply chain. Only through the above procedures can the enterprise maintain their long-lasting competitive advantage. Therefore, the paper is going to focus on the textile and dyeing-finishing industry in terms of : (1) the difficulties of the industry. (2) the turning point for the industry- the green supply chain. (3) the key success factor of the reforming strategy. (4) the perspective and opinion from experts and scholars. (5) the implication and conclusion.

With the development of scientific and technological progress, electronic products are replaced rapidly and the products¡¦ life cycles are shorter than before. Therefore, products¡¦ price are reducing sharply due to market is unpredictable. Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) companies are facing competitive pressure with speedy production and price reduction continuously. Moreover, under the phenomenon of the bigger corporation the better operation and economic of scale leading the industry competition, cost and speed are part of key factors to be survival consequently. If medium and small size EMS companies cannot match customers¡¦ requirement, their future to the consequence will be closed or be merged. Hence, to perform an individual company¡¦s competitive ability cannot only rely on internal resource and capability, but also cross boundary between each company. This means companies could win the opportunities by cooperating with customers and supplier in the same supply chain. ¡§Collaborative Commerce¡¨ as productive management skill is for this reason an important research topic recently in business administration. This research applies ¡§System Dynamics Theory¡¨ to collect the relative data and built up a model to achieve the case company¡¦s structure. According to the industry¡¦s characteristic, the researcher simulated and analyzed the incidence of applying collaborative commerce. Moreover, the researcher also discussed the case company¡¦s variance under different dimension, i.e. management strategy, processes of collaborative operation, and benefit anticipated. As a result, applying collaborative commerce provide a good explanation on how it is important for a company to coordinate with external resource, upgrade a company¡¦s management efficiency and adjust a company¡¦s strategy. The conclusions of this research were as followed. Firstly, because of the demand¡¦s uncertainty, inventory was also variance and this was called ¡§Bullwhip Effect¡¨. Moreover, triple collaboration was more efficiency to solve the problem from Bullwhip Effect and reduce the loss occurring by inventory variance. Secondly, the results were not certainly equal between originator and participator. However, Collaborative Commerce can provide effective function for supply chain on productive management. Thirdly, we could monitor the problems of collaboration function while applying dynamical simulation method in practical business and examine the executive outcome. Moreover, this could also be a research instrument when companies analyze Supply Chain Collaboration.

<p>Since January 1st 2008, companies have the opportunity to become certified by the new common customs system Authorized Economic Operator (AEO). This opportunity is presented so that authorities together with operators are trusted to ensure that it is the correct cargo that gets transported. Attends Healthcare AB (Attends) has decided to implement this certification. To qualify there are a number of criteria that needs to be met. The aim of this thesis is to verify if Attends can meet the required criteria. This is to create a useful basis for the audit by the Customs Board.</p><p> </p><p>The data collection and gap analysis carried out results in that a number of critical and less critical gaps are identified. An example of the gaps which were identified is a documented routine that deals with export declarations in the current situation. The gaps were mainly identified in the security and customs areas. After consultation with staff at Attends and the Customs Board, the decision was made that a number of routines and additions should be created to deal with the most critical gaps before the audit. With the less critical gaps, it was determined that action should take place only after the audit if the need occur. By dealing with the less critical gaps later, it should be less time consuming. This is because when the Customs Board has obtained some knowledge of the company’s routines, they will be able to give more detailed information to Attends about what needs to be fixed.</p><p> </p><p>A systematic approach was performed in which all processes and documents deemed relevant to the certification were provided. Categorization was used to create a better understanding of the area that belongs to the documentation. This approach resulted in a register with the purpose to simplify identification of the documents.</p><p> </p><p>After completed collection of data and analysis the conclusion shows that Attends Healthcare AB has a large number of routines and other related documents from the company's ISO-certifications and their operations system, Total Process Management that can be reused. This previous work will simplify the implementation of an AEO certification substantially.</p> / <p>Sedan 1 januari 2008 har företag möjlighet att bli certifierade av det nya gemensamma tullsystemet Godkänd Ekonomisk Aktör. Detta för att tillsammans med myndigheter och aktörer säkerställa att det är rätt gods som finns med i transporterna. Attends Healthcare AB har beslutat att införa denna certifiering men för att bli godkänd finns det ett antal kriterier som måste uppfyllas. Målsättningen med detta examensarbete är att verifiera att företaget har den dokumentation som krävs för att uppfylla kraven som ställs av Tullverket. Detta för att skapa en bra grund vid revision av Tullverket.</p><p> </p><p>Datainsamlingen och gapanalysen som genomförts resulterade i att ett antal kritiska samt mindre kritiska gap kunde identifieras. Ett exempel på gap som identifierats är de rutiner som behandlar exportdeklarationer och i dagsläget inte finns dokumenterade. Huvudsakligen upptäcktes gapen inom säkerhets- och tullområdena. Efter samråd med personal på Attends och Tullverket bestämdes att ett antal rutiner och kompletteringar ska skapas för att åtgärda de mest kritiska gapen innan revision. För de mindre kritiska gapen så bestämdes att åtgärder först kommer ske efter revision ifall behovet då uppstår. Genom att åtgärda i efterhand bör kompletteringar bli mindre tidskrävande. Detta för att Tullverket har bättre insyn och kan därför ge ingående kritik till Attends om vad som behöver åtgärdas.</p><p> </p><p>En systematisering genomfördes där samtliga rutiner och dokument som ansågs relevanta för certifieringen angavs. Uppdelningen i olika kategorier är till för att ha övervakad kontroll på vilket område dokumentationen tillhör. Detta resulterade i ett register för att enkelt identifiera dokumenten.</p><p> </p><p>Efter slutförd datainsamling och analys kan slutsatsen dras att Attends Healthcare AB har ett stort antal rutiner och andra relaterade dokument som kan återanvändas ifrån företagets ISO-certifieringar och deras verksamhetssystem, Total Process Management. Detta tidigare arbete kommer förenkla genomförandet av en Godkänd Ekonomisk Aktör certifiering avsevärt.</p>

<p>Environmental awareness has increased rapidly around the globe inrecent years, which has lead to consumer demands for sustainable products. Inreaction to this, companies try to keep up with consumer demands and green theirsupply chain, in hope to acquire a competitive advantage. This research willtherefore determine to what extent these green supply chain practices influence thebuying decision of consumers.Environmental awareness has increased rapidly around the globe inrecent years, which has lead to consumer demands for sustainable products. Inreaction to this, companies try to keep up with consumer demands and green theirsupply chain, in hope to acquire a competitive advantage. This research willtherefore determine to what extent these green supply chain practices influence thebuying decision of consumers.</p>

<p>Unibrands is a small company that has implemented a postponement strategy without knowing it. However, they have not implemented completely because they do not know the theories behind it. This report is an attempt to understand and analyze the problems of the implementation of postponement in the supply chain of Unibrands, in terms of examining the theoretical succeeds factors of postponement implementation in the case of Unibrands.The purpose is to determine what type of postponement strategy the supply chain use and what factors can hinder the use of postponement strategy in a SME fashion supply chain by applying an qualitative research approach. The collection of empirical data was through the interview guide approach in which we used meetings and telephone interviews with people representing Unibrands and their contact trading company. The results of this research can be concluded in few perspectives. Unibrands is imple-menting postponement in an improper format, with the results of several gaps in the supply chain related to the success factor in postponement. The request for the fully customization in colors and materials, the bottleneck of relationship developing which is caused by factory manager,  complicated procedures for sample testing, and lack of knowledge of different relationships in the supply chain. Postponement is never perfect, but for Unibrands some problems could very well hinder the efficiency in the supply chain. Solutions are proposed to solve the problems in chain. The proposals suggest re-lationship improvement and information sharing. In addition, culture adaptation by in-volving the right people in the right process.</p>

<p>Bakgrund: Flera stora produktionsföretag har börjat använda sig av utvecklingsprogram för sina leverantörerna för att sprida beprövade tanke- och arbetssätt och därigenom erhålla förbättrade prestationer av leverantörerna. Denna utveckling har i flera fall visat sig ge positiva förändringar på leverantörernas prestationer men det har varit svårt för kundföretagen att få kännedom om vad som verkligen har hänt i leverantörernas verksamheter. </p><p>Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att utreda vilka effekter som eftersträvas och erhålls när stora produktionsföretag, genom utvecklingsprogram, bedriver leverantörsutveckling. </p><p>Genomförande: Data och information har insamlats genom personliga intervjuer hos personer från ett stort produktionsföretag samt ett tvärsnitt av tre leverantörsföretags personal. </p><p>Resultat: Studien visar på att bakomliggande motiv till leverantörsutveckling är stabilitet i flödet, långsiktiga leverantörsrelationer, optimala processer och upprätthållandet av kontinuerliga förändring. Alla dessa motiv ligger som grund för ett övergripande motiv som är ökad konkurrenskraft i förädlingskedjan. Studien visar även på att beståndsdelar i utvecklingsprogram kan vara utbildning, gemensam problemlösning och certifiering av leverantörens verksamhet. Studien indikerar på initialt motstånd till leverantörsutvecklingen från leverantören. Resultatet av studien visar emellertid att leverantörsutveckling kan resultera i ett antal positiva effekter hos leverantörerna. Studien visar på positiva effekter på arbetsmiljö, personalens prestationer och samarbete, produktiviteten samt relationen till kundföretagen. Studien indikerar även att leverantörsutveckling kan få vissa effekter på leverantörerna i led två.</p>

<p>Med större krav på effektivisering och pressade kostnader har VMI på senare tid blivit en allt mer tillämpad metod för att samordna aktiviteterna i försörjningskedjan. Mycket forskning har gjorts kring ämnet VMI och dess fördelar. Däremot har inte mycket skrivits om initiativtagande och hur dessa samarbeten uppstår.</p><p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka företag som tillämpar VMI. Detta för att ta reda på vem, kunden eller leverantören, som tar initiativet till samarbetet och varför. Utifrån detta vill vi även identifiera konsekvenser kopplade till vem som tog initiativet.</p><p>Genom vår undersökning har vi kommit fram till att kunden så väl som leverantören kan vara initiativtagare. Detta för att det finns vinster att göras för båda parter. Vi har kunnat identifiera att den främsta anledningen till initiativtagande är de fördelar som ses för det egna företaget. En annan bidragande faktor är även att företagen vill skapa långsiktiga relationer. Vi har genom vår studie inte kunnat identifiera några konsekvenser i samarbetet som är direkt kopplade till vem som tar initiativet. Däremot har vi sett indikationer på att den part som tar initiativet är den som ofta bäst lyckas påverka villkoren för samarbetet.</p>

Zugl.: Vallendar, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Diss., 2009.