A Framework and Key Techniques for Supply Chain Integration

Supply chain integration is a new kind of organizational model, taking dynamic alliance of supply chain as a subject, to realize global resource integration through interactive collaborate operation of supply chain. Different from vertical integration, this integration focuses on the seamless connection of firms to improve the whole supply chain competitiveness by establishing and maintaining a long-term strategic partnership based on information integration, function and business reengineering, organization integration, cultural adaptation and strategic resources reorganization, etc (Chen & Ma, 2006). Erengue (1999) brought forward four valuable research fields of supply chain, among them 3 are relevant to supply chain integration, i.e. integrated approaches to managing inventory decisions at all stages of the supply chain, the use of information sharing in a multi-partner supply chain, and analytical and simulation models that integrate the three major stages of supply chains which he thought to be is an important future direction of research in the area of supply chain. The literature suggests different theoretical models to describe and operationalise integration. Hammel & Kopczak (1993) pointed out that supply chain life cycle is a whole process from the construction to disaggregation of supply chain and defined the processes of construction, operation and disaggregation from the perspective of focal firm. Fisher (1997) and Nissen (2001) investigated supply chain integration from the aspect of product and agent-based separately. More recently, Lalwani & Mason (2004) and Mason & Lalwani (2006) use a model to characterize the extent of integration in relation to TPL providers. Tang & Qian (2008) established a PLM framework to enable supplier integration and partnership management in the automotive development process. In connection with a survey of the relation between supply chain collaboration and logistics service performance (Stank et al., 2001), a framework for establishing the degree of internal and external collaboration is set up. This framework is further developed by Gimenez & Ventura (2005) in order to study internal and external integration as well as the influence of integration on performance. Again, the framework is appealing, but does not include a more systematic and detailed description of the specific tasks and processes involved in the O pe n A cc es s D at ab as e w w w .in te ch w eb .o rg