Paul Hong, University of Toledo, Paul.Hong@Utoledo.edu
 

Although many firms adopted supply chain management for their sustainable competitive advantages, the primary emphasis was on the supply side rather than the demand side. Supply chain management has traditionally addressed issues that are somewhat predictable elements from supply side. Increasingly, it is becoming more critical to integrate demand chain that is less obvious and elusive because of ever changing customer requirements and the global market reality.
Integrated supply chain management requires network capabilities that satisfy requirements of supply side (i.e., predictable and controllable elements of cost and quality) and demand side (i.e., ambiguous and uncertain factors of changing customer needs and requirements). Research needs for integrating these contradictory natures of management practices of supply and demand sides are inadequately addressed of now. One important way of integrating these two sides (i.e., supply and demand) are manufacturing and yet, the vital roles of manufacturing too often are either conveniently ignored or merely assumed. By virtue of its position, manufacturing is placed at the crossroad of supply chains. For making manufacturing as an effective linkage of supply and demand side, the role of manufacturing strategy needs to be revisited.
In this research, (1) we first present a framework of integrated supply chain; (2) we compare and contrast supply and demand management practices; (3) we also discuss the practical paths of manufacturing strategy that effectively handle integration issues of supply and demand sides; (4) we briefly present case illustrations for the role of manufacturing strategy for integrated supply chain management.

Kamel A. Fantazy, Carleton University, kfantazy@connect.carleton.com

Vinod Kumar, Carleton University, vkumar@sprott.carleton.ca

Uma Kumar, Carleton University, ukmumar@sprott.carleton.ca

This paper addresses the empirical verification of hypothesis that relates to the different types of supply chain strategies that organizations take in today’s competitive environment. This verification is based on a conceptual framework that identified four supply chain strategies in the supply chain community, namely (Innovating, Modularizing, Appending, and Following). We attempt to verify the type of these four supply chain strategies that small- and medium-sized firms adopt. Using the data collected from 175 small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms in Canada, the identified constructs have been tested using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) technique. Our results partially supported the proposed taxonomy of four supply chain strategy types. However, the authors found no evidence of the two underlying dimensions of supply chain strategy that were called modularizing and appending. Interestingly, a new strategy called customer-oriented strategy was identified in the Canadian manufacturing data.