Abstract Building upon the flexibility classification schemes and flexibility typologies literature.

Abstract

Building upon the flexibility classification schemes and flexibility typologies literature, and novel literature on supply chain management, a fresh model of flexibility is proposed: furnish chain flexibility (SCF). The original specifies several important characteristics that are required within and between each node of the accommodate with chain to improve supply chain flexibility. Implications for take the place of chain researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Keywords : flexibility, measurement, afford chain, theory-building

Introduction

Supply Chains and Flexibility

In the 1990's, firms recognized the necessity of looking beyond the borders of their acknowledge firms to their suppliers, suppliers' suppliers, and customers to improve overall customer and consumer value. This motion titled supply chain management or demand chain management, changed the companies' focus from the internal management of business processe to managing across enterprises. The afford Chain Council (2002) defines the universal as:

"The supply chain - a season now commonly used internationally - encompasses each effort involved in producing and delivering a final harvest or service, from the supplier's supplier to the customer's customer. store Chain Management includes managing replenish and demand, sourcing raw materials and parts, manufacturing and assembly, warehousing and inventory tracking, order hall and order management, distribution across all channels, and delivery to the customer."

Supply chain management has emerg as the boundary defining the integration of all these activities into a seamless proces Figure 1 describes a typical endow chain.

The three main strategic imperatives that emerg in this centenary are low cost, high quality, and improved responsiveness (both delivery time and flexibility of proceeds delivery). Flexibility, as described here, is ofttimes viewed as a subset of agility. The universal of an agile enterprise came about as the spring of a collaborative, cross-industry workshop in 1991 Agility was loosely defined as "the ability of an organization to thrive in a continuously changing, unpredictable business environment." Agile organizations were viewed as those able to induce quickly and to choose the greatest in number useful movement appropriate for the situation (Dove et al., 1991) Dove (1999) has since refined the definition as "the ability to manage and apply knowledge effectively," recognizing the importance of information in firm decision-making. Agility has become more important today as the environment is changing faster than always before.

The concept of agility has been reach forthed to supply chain agility (Prater et al., 2001) with its composings defined as speed and flexibility. Flexibility is further shattered into the capabilities of promptnes and the rank to which a firm can adjust its stock chain speed, destinations and bulks In supply chains, where material instigates sequentially from one trading partner to the nearest firms have recognized that to be responsive to period customer demand, all partners in the chain must be flexible in responding to change. This notion is reinforced in the endue chain measurement literature, as 'flexibility to suited particular customer needs' is viewed as an important strategic performance metric (Gunasekaran et al., 2001) While this general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of flexibility is widely viewed as important, self-same little work has been done to define the composings of supply chain flexibility and identify the characteristics that make the endue chain flexible.

Understanding supply chain flexibility (SCF) is important for several reasons. First, modern trends, such as mass customization, require fill up chains to meet individual customer requirements without adding significant preciousness (Gilmore and Pine, 1997, Pine 1997) Companies are allowing customers to provide specific proceeds information needs and are producing fruit for that specific customer. Mass production efficiencies are required for quantities of individual second, certain industries, particularly high-tech, require upside and downside flexibility (Hausman). This generally leaves to the ability to increase or decrease production (by 20% or more) in a minimal amount of time to a novel unplanned level of production and then being able to sustain the modern level. Third, in many innovative fruits categories, such as fashion apparel and electronic devices, uncertainty of demand is a fact of life and creating a responsive contribute chain is one method of avoiding uncertainty (Fisher, 1997) And last, the ever-changing environment in which companies find themselves requires rapid recent product introduction, quick response to customer requirements in all parts of the world, and fast turn-around forward customer orders. Chase et al. (2000) summarize the environment succinctly. "Recent inclines such as outsourcing and mass customization are forcing companies to find flexible ways to convenient customer demand. The focus is in succession optimizing core activities to maximize the spe of rejoinder to changes in customer expectations."