Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Sarikas, O.D. (2006), "Editorial", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 19 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim.2006.08819eaa.001

Editorial

The papers presented in this issue of the Journal of Enterprise Information Management (JEIM) cover important aspects of supply chain management (SCM) and logistics management innovations. Papers were invited by prominent experts in the field, namely Drs Andrew Lyons and Adrian Coronado.

Andrew C. Lyons and Adrian E. Coronado from the University of Liverpool start this issue with a viewpoint paper on key changes in SCM and manufacturing systems. There are plenty of unfulfilled challenges and promises in the development and deployment of such systems. The authors distinguish between informational and physical innovations and then address two types of supply innovation: emergent (green shoots) and projected (blue sky). A green shoot is one where there has been a recent but real change in supplier behaviour or assembler/supplier interaction yet, is a development that is to gain industry-wide recognition. Blue sky on the other hand is a predominantly untried, high-risk innovation yet potential future direction for many supplier configurations.

The first paper by Robert Cigolini, Maria Caridi, and Debora De Marco shifts our attention to what could be a blue sky innovation, which is a novel approach to resolving exceptions concerning sales and forecast data in their paper “Linking autonomous agents to CPFR to improve SCM”. The standpoint of their research lies in the study of the collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) process for trading partnering (belonging to the same supply chain) that are willing to collaborate in exchanging sales and order forecast. Their background study points out the need for providing a collaboration process with an intelligent tool to optimise negotiation. To achieve this, the authors review and classify the literature on autonomous agents used to manage supply chain processes. On the basis of this classification, three models are presented, according to different degrees of agent's capabilities. The analysis of experimental results point out the agent-driven negotiation process (by comparison to CPFR without intelligent agents) benefits in terms of costs, inventory level, stock-out level and sales. This is the first step of the authors towards the analysis of a multi-agent system being used to automate and optimise collaboration along a supply chain. We look forward to receiving their latest findings and reading about it in JEIM.

The next paper by Hossein Sharifi, Dennis F. Kehoe and John L. Hopkins look further into “A classification and selection model for e-marketplaces for better alignment of supply chains”. The propagation of e-marketplaces and the increasing volumes of transactions conducted in on-line exchanges have lead to the re-evaluation of business models within supply networks. To address this, the authors offer a robust, contingent approach to assist organisations in the selection of an appropriate e-marketing model for a particular supply chain configuration. Their framework, developed from a review of relevant literature and examined through conducting case studies, proposes a number of e-business classification models based on dimensions such as the nature of the products/services to be traded, the ownership/formation of the marketplace and the level of functionality/relationships exhibited by the trading exchange. The papers combines an important domain with empirical and practical implications; thus demonstrating that supporting future products customisation strategies using e-marketplaces appeared to be only possible if sufficient confidence and expertise is development within the companies and their supply chain, and the fear of disruption and disintegration of the chain is overcome.

The third contribution comes from Professor Yen-Chun Jim Wu, whose work on “Assessment of technological innovation in patenting for 3rd party logistics providers” reports a first empirical study into the use of patents to analyse logical innovation issued during the period of 1984-2003. The study concerned analysing the use of patents retrieved from major patent databases to create a picture of logistical innovation. This confirms that patents statistics represent a valuable and practical source of information that can be used to plot technological innovation over time. The results of the research point out that technology indicators need to be interpreted with caution and triangulated from several sources and over time.

Moving on, Simon Snowden, John Spafford, Roula Michaelides and John Hopkins in their paper “Technology acceptance and m-commerce in an operational environment” describe a case study concerning the implementation of mobile technologies in an operations management environment and viewed through a technology acceptance model (TAM). The assessment is achieved through Action Research, a practical implementation based upon understandings developed in the TAM. While not a large-scale empirical study this study's insightful findings provide fresh data to further development the TAM and indicate that is not a straightforward set of one dimensional factors and their inter-relationships but that there are bidirectional relationships, and influences between layers of an organisation.

Hannes Günter, Gudela Grote and Oliver Thees examine the effects of SCM systems on improving collaborative planning using a case study of a supply network in the forestry industry. Their work, titled “Information technology in forestry supply networks: does it lead to collaborative planning?” indicates that in cases SCM systems may not lead to the expected results and in the case study the system has had only limited effects on collaborative planning. The authors argue that a possible explanation for this result would be the suboptimal implementation of the SCM system and the low degree of utilisation of the SCM system (e.g. modifications of the SCM system were not communicated to users). A conceptual model is developed integrating the central findings on the relationship between change management, technologies in practice and collaborative planning.

The sixth and last contribution in this issues comes from Adrian E. Coronado, Andrew C. Lyons, Zenon Michaelides and Dennis F. Kehoe in their paper titled “Automotive supply chain models and technologies: a review form of some latest developments”. This work critically reviews business trends and drivers affecting the performance of supply chains and build-to-order initiatives. This includes a comprehensive review of the potential implications of two inbound logistics solutions: supplier parks and the notion of full-service-vehicle supply in addition to developing technologies such as web services interoperability, radio frequency identification and collaborative product commerce. The authors point that the widespread use of the technologies and inbound logistics solutions presented in this paper might require the development of sophisticated measurement tools to assess the performance of the entire supply chain, which may facilitate/promote the adoption of build-to-order initiatives. The editor would like to thank Drs Andrew Lyons and Adrian Coronado for their excellent help and support in generating high quality papers that have formed this issue of JEIM.

The papers presented in this issue cover important aspects of supply networks, from collaborative planning, use of autonomous agents and mobile technologies and e-market places to the adoption of technological innovations and in-bound logistics solutions. We hope you enjoy reading another exciting copy of JEIM.

Zahir IraniEditor (zahir.irani@brunel.ac.uk), and Omiros D. SarikasEditorial Assistant