Supporting non-hierarchical supply chain networks in the electronics industry

The European electronics industry faces a strong competition with far eastern and US manufacturers. They have to respond with improved flexibility to changing requirements and collaborate across the supply chain effectively capitalizing on collaborative decision making. On operational levels a lot of concepts and tools have been implemented, which support automatic information exchange to optimize the supply chains. However, the collaboration on tactical and strategic levels is not supported; especially new forming non-hierarchical networks are concerned. This paper describes the problem analysis as a basis for the project approach and first findings gained from four industrial use cases. The goal of the CONVERGE project is to fill the existing gap regarding collaboration on tactic and strategic level by providing a framework and tools for exchanging tactical and strategic information.