A reference framework for Supplier 4.0 development programs: a Delphi study

Geng Y., Xiang X., Zhang G., Li X.

Ullah H., Uzair M., Jan Z., Ullah M.

This paper explores the challenges and potential solutions related to data collection, integration, processing, and utilization in defense manufacturing within the context of Industry 4.0. While Industry 4.0 envisions the integration of various technologies to achieve seamless operations in industries, the unique characteristics of defense manufacturing, such as stringent data limitations and security requirements, make direct translation challenging. Through a comprehensive review of academic literature, key themes were identified, including quality control, digitalization, cyber–physical aspects, sustainability, risk management, ownership of information, and security. Drawing from the reviewed publications, potential solutions were distilled into related approaches, such as data governance frameworks, data exchange standards, blockchain, additive manufacturing, transparent digital supply chains, and smart factories. These solutions present opportunities for the Australian defense manufacturing industry to overcome the identified challenges and leverage the benefits of Industry 4.0, including improved quality control, increased efficiency, enhanced security, and optimized supply chains. By embracing these opportunities, the defense manufacturing sector can successfully navigate the complexities of Industry 4.0 and realize its vision of seamless integration for continued growth and success.

Kalesh S., Kiratli-Schneider N., Schiele H.

Purpose This paper aims to explore factors influencing suppliers' acceptance, integration challenges, expected benefits and support from customers when implementing a customer-introduced digital supply chain system. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates the perspective of suppliers using a mixed methodology approach that combines qualitative interviews with a large-scale quantitative survey conducted among 220 internationally located suppliers of an automotive-industrial firm. Findings As a result, the authors identified 11 factors that drive suppliers' acceptance of customer-introduced digital supply chain systems. These factors have been ranked based on their importance. The top three important factors identified were the digital system being provided at no cost to the suppliers, the system's ability to save time and the system offering benefits to the suppliers. Research limitations/implications Further research can be conducted to validate the perspective of suppliers in other industries. Additionally, future studies can investigate the effectiveness of fulfilling these acceptance factors within an actual digital integration setup. Practical implications Companies can leverage these insights to accelerate their digital supply chain integration efforts. The insights on acceptance factors, challenges, benefits and support expected by suppliers can serve as a valuable guide for policy and decision makers within the industry. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the perspective of suppliers in the integration of a customer's digital supply chain. By including the supplier's perspective, this study makes a significant contribution to the academic literature about supply chain digitalisation.

Ricárdez-Estrada J., Garay-Rondero C.L., Romero D., Wuest T., Pinto R.

Ricárdez-Estrada J., Garay-Rondero C.L., Romero D., Wuest T., Pinto R.

In the global manufacturing sector, the ever-increasing digital transformation of Supply Chains (SCs) has become imperative, leading to building new digital and analytical capabilities to achieve SC competitiveness. However, building these new capabilities to integrate end-to-end Digital Supply Chains (DSCs) is a major challenge. There is a need to develop a SCM holistic view that facilitates the understanding of the fundamentals behind successful strategic alignment, information sharing, and collaborative decision-making across supply chains and networks. This paper examines key enabling digital and smart technologies transforming supply chains and networks through an explorative review of the scientific literature, identifying emerging DSC capabilities and technology adoption challenges that supply chains and networks face to achieve their digital transformation. Furthermore, this paper concludes that digital strategic alignment must be practised among DSC partners. The findings contribute to understanding how digital and analytical capabilities are built for DSC competitiveness – with implications for SCM theory and practice.

Längle A., Burgess P., Sunmola F.

The food industry faces increasing challenges in compliance management due to complexities such as evolving stakeholder demands and food industry standards. Digital compliance management platforms can support food supply chains in managing these complexities. It is important to capture the requirements across food supply chains to provide digital compliance management platforms that meet stakeholder needs within the chains. The study aimed to investigate the stakeholder-driven requirements of digital supply chain compliance management platforms within the German meat industry. The study was qualitative through the Delphi study approach. Prior to the Delphi study, stakeholder mapping was used to select the participants who are experts actively engaged with digital meat compliance platforms. In round 1 of the Delphi study, participants were asked to review the relevance of 51 existing requirements from a fresh fruit and vegetable digital compliance platform, with 50 requirements reaching full consensus among the participants. In the same round, the participants put nine additional requirements. In round 2 of the Delphi study, participants were asked to prioritise the nine additional requirements. Some requirements, like database connection, document versioning, and automatic document analysis, were found to influence user satisfaction, while others were less significant. This research shows that requirements transfer from the fresh produce sector to the meat sector is plausible. The transfer should recognise common requirements across sectors and incorporate those specific to the meat sector for improved user satisfaction.

Ahmed Khan S., Kusi-Sarpong S., Gupta H., Kow Arhin F., Nguseer Lawal J., Mehmood Hassan S.

Technological advancement is redefining supply chains (SCs) processes and soon traditional ways of managing SCs will no more be feasible and effective. Due to recent advancement in technology, digitalization has become an emerging topic among decision-makers and researchers. To cope-up with this emerging trend in customer behavior and remain competitive, organizations must move from their traditional ways of managing their SCs to digital supply chains (DSCs) for improved organizational performance. Therefore, the purpose of this article is in two folds: First, to identify critical factors of DSCs that are essential for transitioning traditional SCs to DSCs to improve organizational performance. Second, interpretive structural modeling is used to establish the relationship among critical factors and (matriced’ impacts croise´s multiplication applique´e a´un classement used to identify the driving and dependency power of the critical factors. Thus, this article identified fifteen DSC critical factors and established their direct and indirect effect on DSCs. The results show that “SC resilience”, and “proactive prevention” have the highest dependency power factors whilst “integration” and “advanced operational models” have the highest driving power factors. This article can help SC managers and decision-makers to understand the critical factors essential in adopting DSCs for improving organizational performance.

Resende C.H., Lima-Junior F.R., Carpinetti L.C.

Supplier development refers to the efforts of a purchasing company and its suppliers to improve supplier performance and its ability to fulfill the purchasing company’s supply needs. Recently, several quantitative models have appeared in the literature that support decision-making processes regarding supplier development programs (SDPs). To update the latest research related to this subject, as well as contribute towards the establishment of a research agenda, this study presents a review of the literature on decision-making models that assist the formulating and evaluating of SDPs. This review analyzes 65 articles published in relevant journals, which are characterized in terms of several factors which are inherent to decision making in supplier development. The results show that most models focus on formulating SDPs, whereas the most common decision-making methods are Data Envelopment Analysis and Rough Set Theory. The use of multicriteria models and Fuzzy Sets has increased. The research gaps identified allowed us to propose some future research directions on the topic, calling attention to the need of developing new models considering elements that have not yet been studied in the literature, as well as performing comparative studies between them. Our results here can help orient researchers and managers in developing their decision-making processes in terms of SDP formulation and evaluation.

Aras A., Büyüközkan G.

For a successful digital transformation, organizations must create an accurate roadmap and manage the process effectively. A digital maturity model is a critical success factor as it enables organizations to assess their current situation and create roadmaps aligned with their goals; however, a comprehensive systematic literature review covering the maturity models proposed by academia and consultancy firms is hard to find. Further, the existing models are sector-oriented, not organization-oriented, and do not consider the transformation journey holistically, but instead focus on model dimensions. This study first undertakes a comprehensive and up-to-date systematic literature review by applying the PRISMA approach using a bibliometric analysis tool capable of providing visual maps, then developing a unique holistic digital maturity model that covers several aspects of an organization’s digital transformation journey, from strategy to governance, and asking relevant questions. The hierarchical structure, comprising dimensions and sub-dimensions, presents content beyond the scope of other models. The results of the digital maturity assessment can be interpreted in parallel with the stages of the digital transformation. Consequently, the new holistic and sector-independent digital maturity model can be used by organizations in both the private and public sector.

Joshi A.W.

Manufacturing firms deploy two actions to enhance supplier performance: (i) they provide rewards, i.e., incentives, and (ii) they provide resources, i.e., investment. In this study, we ask why each of these actions is effective and when it is more (or less) effective. Drawing from expectancy theory, we argue that incentives are effective in enhancing supplier performance because they increase supplier instrumentality, while investment is effective in enhancing supplier performance because it increases supplier expectancy. Having identified two types of technological change—dynamism and diversity—we draw from contingency theory to argue that incentives are less effective when technological dynamism is high, and that they are more effective when technological diversity is high. Conversely, we argue that investment is more effective when technological dynamism is high, and that it is less effective when technological diversity is high. We develop a moderated mediation model in which supplier instrumentality and supplier expectancy mediate the impacts of incentives and investment, respectively, on supplier performance, with technological dynamism and technological diversity serving as moderators of these mediated pathways. The results from a matched dyadic survey of 202 supplier–manufacturer relationships provide support for our moderated mediation model.

Zhang H., Zhang Q.

Nowadays, no organization or sector is immune to the influences of digital transformation. It has been generally recognized as a significant promoter of corporate efficiency and effectiveness. However, the literature on whether and how digital transformation can facilitate corporate total factor productivity is scarce. In this case, this paper aims to empirically investigate whether and how digital transformation can boost a firm’s total factor productivity. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies from 2007–2020 and structural equation model analyses in STATA 16.0, this paper identifies that (1) digital technology, one dimension of digital transformation, has no significant effects on enterprise total factor productivity, while digital application, the other dimension of digital transformation, can directly enhance enterprise total factor productivity; (2) both digital technology and digital application can indirectly boost enterprise total factor productivity through the decreasing of supplier concentration; and (3) digital technology adversely affects enterprise total factor productivity through the increasing of customer concentration, and digital application may positively affect enterprise total factor productivity through the decreasing of customer concentration. Our study is one of the first to explore the mediating effect mechanism of the relationship between digital transformation and enterprise total factor productivity from the perspective of supply chain management.

Haryanti T., Rakhmawati N.A., Subriadi A.P.

The Digital Transformation (DX) potentially affects productivity and efficiency while offering high risks to organizations. Necessary frameworks and tools to help organizations navigate such radical changes are needed. An extended framework of DMM is presented through a comparative analysis of various digital maturity models and qualitative approaches through expert feedback. The maturity level determination uses the Emprise test of the international standard ISO/IEC Assessment known as SPICE. This research reveals seven interrelated dimensions for supporting the success of DX as a form of development of an existing Maturity Model. The DX–Self Assessment Maturity Model (DX-SAMM) is built to guide organizations by providing a broad roadmap for improving digital maturity. This article presents a digital maturity model from a holistic point of view and meets the criteria for assessment maturity. The case study results show that DX-SAMM can identify DX maturity levels while providing roadmap recommendations for increasing maturity levels in every aspect of its dimensions. It offers practical implications for improving maturity levels and the ease of real-time monitoring and evaluating digital maturity. With the development of maturity measurement, DX-SAMM contributes to the sustainability of the organization by proposing DX strategies in the future based on the current maturity achievements.

Oubrahim I., Sefiani N., Happonen A.

This study examined the association between digital transformation (DT), supply chain integration (SCI), and overall sustainable supply chain performance (OSSCP). The current literature has preliminarily explored the concepts of DT and SCI and their relationship with sustainable supply chain performance. However, real empirical evidence of the direct impact of DT and SCI on OSSCP has been missing so far. To fill this gap, data were collected from 134 professionals working in international manufacturing companies operating in Morocco through a questionnaire-based survey from August 2022 to November 2022. A conceptual framework was developed based on DT, SCI, and OSSCP and analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the assistance of SmartPLS 4.0 software. The findings revealed that DT has a significant positive influence on SCI and OSSCP. Furthermore, SCI directly and positively impacts OSSCP with a partial mediation effect on the relationship between DT and OSSCP. Further, this research provides insights for practitioners into enhancing sustainable supply chain performance by adopting digital technologies and integrating SC functions. In particular, this study revealed that DT adoption drives a higher ethical supply chain level from the perspective of sustainability and efficiency in operations. This study is the first to analyze the influence of digital transformation and supply chain integration on sustainable supply chain performance in a manufacturing context.

Eslami M.H., Achtenhagen L., Bertsch C.T., Lehmann A.

This study investigates the role of knowledge-sharing between supply chain actors in facilitating their adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies, identifying factors that hinder or promote such knowledge-sharing. Drawing on an in-depth single case study, including 19 interviews with a manufacturing firm in the German automotive industry and five of the suppliers and customers in the focal firm’s supply chain, the study identifies the following knowledge-sharing approaches that facilitate the adoption of Industry 4.0: 1) knowledge-sharing through principles; 2) upstream flow of knowledge; 3) strategic positioning; and 4) application-relatedness. These approaches are shown to be influenced both by company-related factors and relational factors. Applying a knowledge-based view of the firm, this study addresses a gap in current research by investigating the role of knowledge-sharing in adopting Industry 4.0 from the perspectives not only of a single focal firm but also of upstream and downstream suppliers and customers in the supply chain. In presenting approaches to knowledge-sharing that promote the implementation of Industry 4.0 based on a firm's existing resources, this study is also of direct relevance to practitioners. • Knowledge-sharing between supply chain actors in facilitate adoption of Industry 4.0 • Dyadic knowledge-sharing approaches in supply chains • Factors influence knowledge-sharing with upstream & downstream actors in supply chains

Battistoni E., Gitto S., Murgia G., Campisi D.

Digital transformation requires the implementation of different technologies that may improve the firms' capability in the collection, combination, processing, and use of business data. To guarantee an adequate combination of these technologies, several maturity models have been proposed in the literature, but only a few papers have investigated the actual implementation paths adopted by firms for digital transformation. In particular, no studies have investigated the implementation paths followed by SMEs, whose limited financial and human resources may prevent the adoption of the roadmaps developed for large firms. In this paper, we analyse the implementation paths for digital transformation adopted by a wide sample of Italian SMEs operating in different sectors. By combining Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling with Necessity Condition Analysis, we clarify the specific enabler and enhancer roles played by different digital technologies. The study sheds further light on the relationship among these technologies and their contribution to the development of SMEs’ information processing capability. In particular, our analysis shows that digital technologies associated with Industry 4.0 can be classified into four hierarchical layers, Sensor, Integration, Intelligence, and Response, that are in charge of the collection, combination, processing and use of organizational data. Our results show that the implementation of these layers is not based on a standalone approach since the lower layers enable and enhance the adoption of the upper layers. The present paper may also offer useful insights to managers and policymakers, interested in improving the digital transformation of SMEs. • The implementation paths for digital transformation adopted by Italian SMEs are investigated. • A classification of Industry 4.0 technologies based on four layers is adopted. • Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling and Necessity Condition Analysis are combined. • The specific enabler and enhancer roles played by different digital technologies are clarified.