Supply chain management has been used to describe the integration of purchasing, operations, and
distribution activities among a network of interdependent organizations. Most of the research to date focuses
on manufacturing practices within the supply chain with little emphasis on the service sector. This paper
presents exploratory findings of a comprehensive survey of US and European organizations to study the
practice of supply chain management in services. Respondents who practiced supply chain management were
asked a number of questions regarding their supply base including logistics, partnership, certification, supplier
selection and performance, and customer relationship issues. Their responses form the basis for this paper.
The United States and other industrialized nations continue to move toward more
service-based economies. For example, services now account for more than 60% of the GNP
and close to 80% of employment in the US [Heizer and Render, 2001]. The world is also
changing as more services are exported, with US service sales representing approximately
30% of all exports in 2003 with a trade surplus [Bureau of Economic Development, 2004]. As
services continue to gain importance and are exported internationally, similar to manufactured
goods, a need for a Supply Chain Management (SCM) perspective is warranted. While trade
journals and academic research have addressed manufacturing’s SCM practices to a great
extent, less attention has been paid to the service sector [for trade journal examples, see
Benchley, 2004; Tobin and Osyk, 2004]. Specifically, limited prior attention has been paid to
supply chain participation, integration of processes, or successful logistics strategies [Lambert
et al., 1998]. Differences do exist between manufacturing and service operations, however,
which make further exploration necessary and constitute the basis for this research.
Thus, the objective of this study was to explore the supply chain model from a service
perspective. Specifically, the goals were to identify current practices, issues, and barriers
associated with SCM. We believe the findings here begin to offer a snapshot of SCM
within service organizations and will hopefully lead to further research in this area.
The following section describes the existing SCM literature relevant to the study of
service organizations. Subsequent sections present discussions of the research methodology,
demographic characteristics of the respondents, logistical activities and strategies and
their relationships to SCM, and the managerial or strategic implications of the study.
Future research directions are also presented and discussed. |
