Supply Chain Management Case Study
Read this journal article, which examines supply chain management drivers and the motivation of sustainability for manufacturing enterprise supply chains in Pakistan.
Introduction
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has acknowledged a great deal of interest by researchers and practitioners. SCM has become a universal way across industries since it addresses seller-buyer partnerships, shared planning, continuing strategic coalition, control of inventory cross-organizational, information sharing and logistics management. Effective SCM leads to the provision of the necessary level of customer service to a specific segment by decreasing the entire amount of resources as well as enhancing customer services through improved product availability and reduced order cycle time. Therefore, supply chain management field is expanding over the last few decades due to increasing reliance on suppliers' performance, and dynamic changes of suppliers. To compete successfully in the global market economy, firms gradually find themselves dependent on having effective supply chain channels. As a result, performance can no longer be determined exclusively by the decisions made and actions taken within a firm. That is because in a competitive global environment, the execution of members in the supply chain contributes to the overall results of the chain.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has also received attention from industrialists,
especially, strategic planning in design, maintenance, and operation of the supply chain
processes. Despite the improvements successfully achieved with the help of SCM, organizations
and policy makers overlooked the environmental issues including global energy, global
warming, reverse logistic, and ecological concerns in global competition. With the increasing
environmental concerns over the past decades, Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) has
recently emerged to comply with regulations for environmental protection. In order to fulfill environmental obligations, organizations are now start
recognizing that they cannot work in isolation; since companies have often been charged with the
environmental liabilities of their suppliers. Therefore, there has been an urgency to
integrate environmental initiatives, not only within the walls of the company, but also across the
entire supply chain to ensure the enterprise's sustainable performance.
The sustainable performance in an organization happens when a company or firm creates
ongoing value for its stakeholders and shareholders while keeping up with the environmental
requirement. Sustainability is a brilliant way of performing a
business and developing innovative and constructive corporate culture through integration is one
of the essential parts of the sustainability transition process. These healthy
cultures would be able to create better organizational performance and make optimum use of the
existing assets for the good economic, environmental, and social outcomes. The
result of having economic, environmental, and social sustainability would ensure satisfaction of
the shareholders, supplier, customer, employee, and society.
Due to awareness of environmental protection on a global level, Green Supply Chain
Management (GSCM) has been of great interest of researchers and practitioners of operation and
supply chain management. The GSCM is now considered as an important
management tool in improving sustainable performance, particularly among SMEs. The GSCM
also refers to all stages of supply chain management which must comply with environmental
protection requirements. The manufacturers are required to employ Green
Supply Chain Integration (GSCI) to integrate the environmental management practices within
their companies, with the suppliers and customers. This action will ensure inter-firm cooperation
and encourage mutual GSCM as well as influencing the firm's sustainable performance.
Researchers have focused on green supply chain initiatives from last few years to sustain
environmental sustainability. To this end, Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) is an
approach, aiming at reducing pollution and waste by integration of sustainable environmental
thinking. Various organizations involve green supply chain initiatives to get the advantages of
reduced cost, increased profit, and retained stakeholder values making sustainable competitive
advantage indicated by Kim and Chai. The manufacturing organizations collaborate with
logistics service providers, supply chain partners, customers, and suppliers to get effective
command over the competitive position of a company.
In contemporary world, the characteristics of competition are gradually
growing to global
business environments; therefore, it is required by manufacturing
organizations to participate in
order to attain common goals such as minimizing delivery cost, stock
holding cost, increase
punctuality, enhance quality, improved flexibility, and quick response
to ensure profitability and customer satisfaction. Otherwise, the
organization will ultimately lose competence in extremely
varied and volatile market. For instance, Zara, the Spanish apparel
organization provides a real
illustration of the hybrid supply chain. It is one of Spain's greatest
and dynamic apparel
organizations, producing trendy apparel to a universal target market of
18 to 35-year's old. Since
a major difficulty in most supply chains was lack of visibility in
actual demand, forecast-driven
management was better than demand-driven management. Therefore, Zara
developed a quick
response system for the industry to handle the visible problems.
The current research study focuses on green initiatives in manufacturing SMEs of
Pakistan. The Pakistani Government enforced environmental regulations and green initiatives to
address the scarcity of resources and environmental issues. Recently, the manufacturing
production in Pakistan has started growing with a slow pace. In April 2018, the manufacturing
production of Pakistan increased by 4.10%. However, the manufacturing industries are facing
severe issues regarding environmental sustainability. Both consumers and environmental groups
have been concerned about environmental impact, global warming, and sustainability of products
and services in the marketplace. The manufacturing firms are under pressure due to increasing
awareness of environmental sustainability. In this regard, supply
chain management drivers such as production, inventory, information, transportation, and
location develop sustainability goals for manufacturing firms to maximize protective
measurement of environment.
In an attempt to reduce sources of waste and pollution for overall supply chain, the
manufacturing firms initiated to adopt an externally oriented approach that maximizes the utility
of green supply chain initiatives. Such extended responsibility comprises organization
downstream and upstream as well as closed-loop supply chain, green supply chain, and product
stewardship. Thus, green initiatives, as well as
supply chain management drivers, unleash the possibility of sustainability in manufacturing
SMEs, in particular in Pakistan.
The study of Hsu et al. examines supply chain management drivers fostering the
sustainability of the environment and taking a proactive approach. The previous literature
ponders green supply chain management relationship with organizational performance and
strategy. The adoption of green supply chain initiatives protects the
environment and foster development of efficient supply chain management. In literature of
business research, a few studies examined the relationship between supply chain management
drivers and initiatives of the green supply chain, especially in Pakistan.
Accordingly, a research model is proposed whereas various factors of green supply chain have
been adopted among different SMEs in Pakistan. In the following section, a rationale for green
initiatives in manufacturing enterprises was explored to intimate how drivers pursue
sustainability goals. Next, relevant literature and conceptualization of supply chain management
drivers were demonstrated. In this regard, a set of hypotheses, research methodology and
discussion of manufacturing enterprise of Pakistan were presented. Finally, practical as well as
managerial implications of the research findings were identified on order to conclude research
parameters in an effective manner.