Supply chain collaboration: the relationship between maturity level and performance
Creators: name: Ho, Thi Phuong Dung
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 350903
subject: Logistics
classificationCode: 401407
subject: Manufacturing management
classificationCode: 401411
subject: Packaging, storage and transportation (excl. food and agricultural products)

description: Supply chain collaboration (SCC) and its relationship with performance have received an increased attention from both researchers and industries over the past decades. SCC has affirmed to be a competitive tool to improve the business performance for an organization itself and entire supply chain. Therefore, firms have strived to achieve greater levels for their SCC. <br><br>Although the goals and benefits of SCC are clearly claimed, collaboration has the most unsatisfactory track record of all supply chain management strategies with the success rate falling short of the expectations of participants. One of the reasons for these failures is the broad, incomplete, and unclear instructions for the implementation and further improvements in the existing body of knowledge. As a consequence, this leads to the poor understanding of achieving effective SCC. In addition, the literature review acknowledges the inadequacy of in-depth qualitative-based research on the relationship between SCC and performance. Particularly, how different SCC maturity levels lead to different performance outcomes is less understood. Furthermore, there is a shortage of the industry-based research on SCC and performance. Such studies are considered to be beneficial to managers to minimize the chance of implementation failure and to make strategic decisions for the organization.<br><br>Given these limitations, this study develops a maturity model for SCC (MM-SCC) which is considered as instructions of implementation as well as the improvement for SCC maturity in the industry. MM-SCC serves as a benchmark for SCC practices with two functions, a diagnostic tool, and an improvement roadmap. This model uses Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) as the reference framework. To the author's knowledge, it is first time that CMMI is integrated into MM-SCC and is an original contribution to address the gap on the existing body of knowledge on SCC.<br> <br>Subsequently, this model is used to explore in-depth relationship between SCC and performance. Particularly, how different maturity levels lead to different performance outcomes is investigated in detail. The model is validated by experts before the application in the real environment. In this study, two textile and apparel industries in Vietnam are chosen as the industry representatives. Case study method with embedded, multiple-case design is used to understand the relationship of SCC with performance. Based on MM-SCC model, SCC practices and maturity levels are evaluated and measured at each case through managers¿ evaluation and the relevant evidence provided by the managers. The effects on the performance are quantitatively and qualitatively measured with actual data of key performance indicators (KPIs) and subjective evaluation of managers. The study provides evidence-based findings on the relationship between SCC and performance outcomes. <br><br>Finally, since the model serves as an improvement roadmap based on the current practices, improvement plans are suggested for the considered case studies with an ERP-based Lean system. For the longitudinal improvement purpose, a system dynamics (SD) simulation model is developed and applied to foresee how the performance changes under different future scenarios when the systems reach a higher collaboration maturity level.<br><br>The findings support the positive link between SCC maturity levels and performance.  It is found that the role of internal collaboration with information integration and operations management in building the SCC maturity level and system &amp; iquest's effectiveness is critical. It also plays the moderator role in the relationship between external collaboration and performance. The simulation results quantitatively demonstrate how performance increases when the organization reaches a higher level of SCC. Furthermore, it also highlights the important role of Lean manufacturing itself to performance and the mediator role of Lean production in the relationship between ERP and performance.<br><br>This study provides an original contribution to knowledge in the field of SCC and performance. This is a first study of its kind to build the maturity model for SCC and examine how well the mechanisms and maturity levels of SCC correspond with the performance, particularly in a specific industry. The results show the applicability and usefulness of MM-SCC model. Case study with real data along with SD provides valuable practices and knowledge to make strategic decisions for managers in the industry. In future, there is further need to enhance the model which considers the capability levels for each process area. In addition, the MM-SSC model can be tested to other industries to generalize the findings on the area of SCC and performance.<br>