C. De Snoo, W. Van Wezel and J.C. Wortmann
The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of physical proximity between schedulers and operators within manufacturing firms. In literature, a small distance between…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of physical proximity between schedulers and operators within manufacturing firms. In literature, a small distance between interdependent employees is assumed to be a prerequisite for a high level of coordination. This study investigates this assumption empirically for the relationship between scheduling and manufacturing and shows effects of proximity that are only partly in line with literature.
Design/methodology/approach
Consequences of relocating the scheduling department within a production firm are studied using a longitudinal case study approach. Data have been collected within three phases: before, three months after, and one year after the relocation.
Findings
Findings show that schedulers and operators communicate more face‐to‐face and less by phone after the relocation, especially during rescheduling. Furthermore, schedulers and operators perceived positive changes in ease of coordination and performance due to the relocation.
Research limitations/implications
Scheduling and rescheduling are usually treated in literature as a mathematical puzzle to be solved. The authors do not contest this in itself, but the findings indicate that communication and collaboration are important aspects as well. In the case company, the possible negative aspects of close proximity, such as more interruptions, are offset by the advantages for rescheduling such as fast response and improved quality of communication. As the study was done in only one manufacturing firm, further research is needed to determine what firm characteristics specifically determine the appropriate location of the scheduling department.
Practical implications
The paper demonstrates the need to carefully design, manage, and facilitate the interface and critical task interdependencies between scheduling and manufacturing departments.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to operations management literature by providing a detailed empirical analysis concerning the effects of physical proximity between schedulers and manufacturing operators, including behavioural and organizational factors.
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Hsin‐I Hsiao, Ron G.M. Kemp, Jack G.A.J. van der Vorst and S.W.F. (Onno) Omta
This paper aims to investigate outsourcing of different types of logistics activities in Taiwanese food industry, and benchmark with practices in The Netherlands.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate outsourcing of different types of logistics activities in Taiwanese food industry, and benchmark with practices in The Netherlands.
Design/methodology/approach
The outsourcing of four levels of logistics activities is investigated: transportation (level 1), packaging (level 2), transportation management (level 3), and distribution network management (level 4). A structured questionnaire was designed and sent to logistics managers in The Netherlands and Taiwan to evaluate the most commonly outsourced activities and identify specific outsourcing firm's characteristics.
Findings
About 69 per cent of the companies, in both countries outsource level 1 activities, 16 per cent level 2, and 37 per cent level 3 activities. Only few companies (about 10 per cent) outsource the highest level of activities. In particular, The Netherlands has higher percentages for levels 1 and 3. This might be caused by the fact that most Taiwanese companies emphasise low cost whereas the Dutch companies focus on flexibility in order to deal with higher complexities. When intentions for the future are included, Taiwan is planning to outsource level 2 (40 per cent) and level 4 activities (36 per cent) much more than The Netherlands (respectively 13 and 17 per cent). When zooming in, it was found that outsourcing strategies of companies in the subsectors differ. For instance, the dairy sector outsources more frequently than the meat sector on the first three levels. This might be caused by the fact that meat companies emphasise food quality, whereas dairy companies emphasise flexibility and reliability.
Research limitations/implications
This study investigated only food processors. The paper suggests further research should include other types of food organisations.
Originality/value
The paper provides valuable insights in outsourcing strategies of food processing companies in Taiwan and The Netherlands for advanced logistics service providers who are looking at the market potential of Taiwan.
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Manoj Dora, Dirk Van Goubergen, Maneesh Kumar, Adrienn Molnar and Xavier Gellynck
Recent literature emphasizes the application of lean manufacturing practices to food processing industries in order to improve operational efficiency and productivity. Only a very…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent literature emphasizes the application of lean manufacturing practices to food processing industries in order to improve operational efficiency and productivity. Only a very limited number of studies have focused on the implementation of lean manufacturing practices within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the food sector. The majority of these studies used the case study method and concentrated on individual lean manufacturing techniques geared towards resolving efficiency issues. This paper aims to analyze the status of the lean manufacturing practices and their benefits and barriers among European food processing SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data. A total of 35 SMEs' representatives, mostly CEOs and operations managers, participated in the survey. The study investigated the role of two control variables in lean implementation: size of the company and country of origin.
Findings
The findings show that lean manufacturing practice deployment in food processing SMEs is generally low and still evolving. However, some lean manufacturing practices are more prevalent than others; e.g. flow, pull and statistical process control are not widely used by the food processing SMEs, whereas total productive maintenance, employee involvement, and customer association are more widespread. The key barriers encountered by food SMEs in the implementation of lean manufacturing practices result from the special characteristics of the food sector, such as highly perishable products, complicated processing, extremely variable raw materials, recipes and unpredictable demand. In addition, lack of knowledge and resources makes it difficult for food processing SMEs to embark on the lean journey.
Originality/value
The gap in the literature regarding the application of lean manufacturing in the food sector is identified and addressed in this study. The originality of this paper lies in analyzing the current status of the use of lean manufacturing practices among food SMEs in Europe and identifying potential barriers.
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Thomas Lager, Peter Samuelsson and Per Storm
In the process industries, it is essential to have a well-articulated manufacturing strategy within companies. However, to facilitate manufacturing strategy development, it is…
Abstract
Purpose
In the process industries, it is essential to have a well-articulated manufacturing strategy within companies. However, to facilitate manufacturing strategy development, it is important to start with a good characterisation of the material transformation system and company production capabilities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory approach, with inspiration from configuration modelling, attempted to characterize the material transformation system as a set of variables. The variable development was based on a literature review and the knowledge base of five industry experts. Two exploratory mini-case studies were carried out, primarily to illustrate the use of the model, but additionally to test its industrial usability.
Findings
A set of 31 variables was developed, and related measures and scales were tentatively defined. Two mini-cases supported the usability of the model. The model, focussing on company generic process capabilities, is a conceptual taxonomy and the study’s theoretical contribution.
Research limitations/implications
The lucidity of the definitions and scales for the variables are open to further refinement, and the limited discussions of variable relationships in this study are addressed in an agenda for further research.
Practical implications
The model can be deployed as a facilitative instrument in the analysis of company material transformation systems and may serve as a platform in further discussions on companies’ strategy development.
Originality/value
The model is a new instrument for analysing company generic process capabilities and an effort to build new theory rather than to test an existing one.
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This paper aims to demonstrate how to make emergency decision when decision makers face a complex and turbulent environment that needs quite different decision-making processes…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate how to make emergency decision when decision makers face a complex and turbulent environment that needs quite different decision-making processes from conventional ones. Traditional decision techniques cannot meet the demands of today’s social stability and security.
Design/methodology/approach
The main work is to develop an instance-driven classifier for the emergency categories based upon three fuzzy measures: features for an instance, solution for the instance and effect evaluation of the outcome. First, the information collected from the past emergency events is encodes into a prototype model. Second, a three-dimensional space that describes the locations and mutual distance relationships of the emergency events in different emergency prototypes is formulated. Third, for any new emergency event to be classified, the nearest emergency prototype is identified in the three-dimensional space and is classified into that category.
Findings
An instance-driven classifier based on prototype theory helps decision makers to describe emergency concept more clearly. The maximizing deviation model is constructed to determine the optimal relative weights of features according to the characteristics of the new instance, such that every customized feature space maximizes the influence of features shared by members of the category. Comparisons and discusses of the proposed method with other existing methods are given.
Practical implications
To reduce the affection to economic development, more and more countries have recognized the importance of emergency response solutions as an indispensable activity. In a new emergency instance, it is very challengeable for a decision maker to form a rational and feasible humanitarian aids scheme under the time pressure. After selecting a most suitable prototype, decision makers can learn most relevant experience and lessons in the emergency profile database and generate plan for the new instance. The proposed approach is to effectively make full use of inhomogeneous information in different types of resources and optimize resource allocation.
Originality/value
The combination of instances can reflect different aspects of a prototype. This feature solves the problem of insufficient learning data, which is a significant characteristic of emergency decision-making. It can be seen as a customized classification mechanism, while the previous classifiers always assume key features of a category.
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Stefania Boscari, Dirk Pieter van Donk, Madeleine Pullman and Chengyong Xiao
Extant research shows collaboration among supply chain (SC) partners can address the significant environmental impacts of industrial food systems, but can be risky and…
Abstract
Purpose
Extant research shows collaboration among supply chain (SC) partners can address the significant environmental impacts of industrial food systems, but can be risky and resource-intensive. Past studies have predominantly treated buyer–supplier sustainability collaborations as a single aggregate concept missing the theoretical richness. This study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of these collaborations for jointly improving sustainable food supply networks.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study was conducted covering 8 SCs in the Dutch food processing industry, using data from 27 interviewees and extensive secondary material.
Findings
By applying the dynamic relational view, this study identifies three types of buyer–supplier collaboration, reflecting three paths of sustainable value creation: (1) the bilateral path, featuring equal participation and extensive collaboration, yielding substantial environmental and economic benefits; (2) the buyer-driven path, where the buyer leads the collaboration to address sustainability issues that are raised by stakeholders, relying on supplier expertise to improve SC traceability and sustainability reputation, albeit at higher costs; (3) the supplier-driven path, where the supplier leads the collaboration for incremental environmental and economic improvements.
Practical implications
The taxonomy results provide practical guidelines to assist managers in selecting the most suitable collaboration type for their specific sustainability goals and more effectively address sustainability challenges.
Originality/value
The three identified types of collaboration form a novel taxonomy for improving sustainability in food supply networks, representing different paths for SC partners to achieve progressively more substantial sustainability improvements. This taxonomy challenges the perspective that adopting sustainability invariably leads to increased costs by providing evidence of simultaneous economic and environmental improvements.
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Lars-Erik Gadde and Pegah Amani
The purpose of this paper is to present a “network” framing of food supply arrangements. Such frameworks have been asked for in previous research as supplements to prevailing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a “network” framing of food supply arrangements. Such frameworks have been asked for in previous research as supplements to prevailing supply chain conceptualizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework builds on industrial network theory. According to this approach, business reality is analyzed in three inter-related dimensions: the activities undertaken, the resources used for this undertaking, and the actors controlling resources and activities. For each dimension, relevant concepts are derived for analysis of the features of food supply and food waste.
Findings
The network framing was useful for analyzing the prerequisites and consequences for two approaches to reduce food waste: one based on extension of shelf-life, the other relying on enhanced responsiveness in the supply arrangement. The framework was then used for suggesting managerial actions to reduce food waste through increasing activity coordination, resource combining, and actor interaction with consideration of potential consequences of such actions.
Practical implications
Managerial issues in food supply are discussed with regard to the role of activity coordination, the role of resource combining, and the role of actor interaction in efforts to prevent food waste.
Originality/value
The paper suggests a novel approach for analyzing food supply networks with particular focus on food waste reduction. Such framings are applied in other supply systems, and requested by food supply researchers.
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Dirk Pieter van Donk, Renzo Akkerman and Taco van der Vaart
The purpose of the paper is to investigate the limitations and barriers for supply chain integration that food manufacturers experience and to highlight their planning and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to investigate the limitations and barriers for supply chain integration that food manufacturers experience and to highlight their planning and scheduling problems. Possible ways to cope with these are offered.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is theoretical/conceptual in nature: the findings are illustrated in an explorative case study.
Findings
It is often suggested that food supply chains are typical for what can be achieved in supply chain management. This paper challenges this belief by investigating the possibilities and limitations for supply chain integration for food manufacturers. The authors argue that a combination of typical food characteristics and the use of shared resources limit the possibility for integration, while uncertainties and complex business conditions increase the need for integration. In a case study, the paper explores alternatives to cope with that situation.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on previous empirical work, which is applied and further developed in a case‐study setting of a consumer product food manufacturer. The authors argue that the case has several generic characteristics, but further research is needed to test the main ideas in a wider context.
Practical implications
Production managers and planners in food manufacturing are often aware of the described situation, but general managers, marketing managers, and supply chain managers can learn that there are limits to aligning operations to customers. The paper offers a number of solutions that might assist production managers in better understanding their situation and thinking about improvements.
Originality/value
The paper introduces buyer focus, shared resources and the limitations of supply chain integration into the field of food supply chains.
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Tobias Schoenherr, Ram Narasimhan and Piyas (P) Bandyopadhyay
– Taking a social network perspective, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assurance of food safety via relational networking.
Abstract
Purpose
Taking a social network perspective, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assurance of food safety via relational networking.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors consider both informal and formal relational networking, and explore a firm’s learning orientation, risk aversion and consumer pressure as potential precursors to such relational networking. It is further hypothesized that relational networking generates both industry and supply chain knowledge, which is suggested to be beneficial for contamination detection. The model is tested with survey data collected among food-producing firms in India, the world’s second largest food producer.
Findings
The authors find a positive influence of consumer pressure on both a firm’s learning orientation and risk aversion, which in turn affect both informal and formal relational networking. Informal networking further generated industry knowledge and was beneficial for contamination detection. Formal relational networking influenced supply chain knowledge, which in turn enabled contamination detection.
Originality/value
Recent food product-related safety breaches, which have, in the worst case, led to fatalities, illustrate the importance of food safety in supply chains. This study represents the first systematic investigation of relational networking in the context of food safety from the perspective of social network theory.
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Hendryk Dittfeld, Kirstin Scholten and Dirk Pieter Van Donk
While systems theory explicitly considers interactions as part of a system’s complexity, supply chain complexity (SCC) is mostly conceptualized and measured as a linear summation…
Abstract
Purpose
While systems theory explicitly considers interactions as part of a system’s complexity, supply chain complexity (SCC) is mostly conceptualized and measured as a linear summation of several aspects. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the general understanding by explicitly investigating interactions between and across different types (detail and dynamic) and levels (plant, supply chain, environment) of SCC.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory multiple case study methodology is adopted drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews with respondents from eight manufacturing plants in the food processing industry.
Findings
On the one hand, it is found that different types add and increase overall SCC. On the other hand, the study also shows the opposite: interactions between detail and dynamic complexity can reduce the overall SCC experienced. Additionally, the findings highlight the specific food processing characteristics such as the variability of quality and quantity of raw materials that underlie interactions between types and levels of SCC.
Originality/value
This study adds to theory by empirically showing that interactions across and between types and levels do not automatically increase, but might also reduce SCC. As such, the findings contribute new detail to the concept of SCC: aspects of complexity do not necessarily add up linearly. Additionally, this study is one of the first to demonstrate how specific contextual aspects from the food processing industry relate to SCC.