Design and Development of Migration Path for Supply Chain Integration for Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

Increasing competition due to globalization, product diversity and technological breakthroughs stimulate independent firms to collaborate in a supply chain that allows gaining the mutual benefits. This requires a collective coordination framework and migration path to synchronize and to integrate the information systems and also organizational activities of the supply chain partners. However, existing research in supply chain integration has paid little attention in identifying and developing a migration path to know the present level of supply chain among the supply chain partners. Hence, the objective of this paper is to develop a framework for supply chain integration. In the proposed research, the informational, organizational and information technology integration is operationalized for the development of Supply Chain Integration framework for manufacturing industries. Further, this paper includes a comprehensive understanding of supply chain integration in general and specifically organizational, informational and IT integration. The developed framework for supply chain integration is validated by a pilot study and it helps the organizations to know the present level and provides a migration path to move to the next level of supply chain integration. This paper will add onto the contribution of authors who have ventured study in the area of supply chain integration.