This document summarizes a research paper on supply chain collaboration. It finds that while supply chain collaboration concepts like VMI and CPFR have been advocated since the 1990s, widespread adoption has been slower than expected. Through case studies across industries, the research identifies two key challenges: 1) a lack of common understanding of collaboration concepts and difficulty integrating external collaboration with internal operations, and 2) failure to align collaboration efforts with supply chain settings around factors like geography, demand patterns, and product characteristics. The document develops a "water tank analogy" framework to classify collaboration strategies from traditional to fully integrated, in order to analyze how information and decision-making is shared and how collaboration can be effectively implemented based on supply chain circumstances.

Supply Chain Collaboration: Making Sense of The Strategy Continuum PDF

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