Just‐in‐time and context

Abstract

An empirical study of 183 manufacturers examines the effects of just‐in‐time (JIT), size, environmental uncertainty, and production complexity on the adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI) technology. A holistic approach was taken whereby LISREL was used to test the model, and the results show that larger organizations and those more intensively utilizing JIT techniques increasingly adopt EDI technology. Environmental uncertainty and production complexity had no effect on EDI technology adoption.

Supply chain management and logistics complexity: a contingency approach

“…Anderson and Katz (1998), when studying strategic sourcing, noted an inseparable trend -namely, that the purchasing function "has been increasing in importance, size (total amount spent), and [therefore] complexity". Germain and Droge (1995) analysed the leading factors to just-in-time (JIT) adoption in North American companies. The authors found that "JIT correlated positively with size [of the firm]" and that "the extent of JIT is associated positively with environmental uncertainty, which may be a reflex of production complexity and number of SKUs [stock keeping units]".…”

“…It is assumed, for the purpose of this research, that the level of complexity in logistics of a company can be gauged (in terms of quantifiable scales) by measures of size (Masters et al, 1992;Germain and Droge, 1995;Pfohl and Zollner, 1997), gross revenue, number of suppliers (Chow et al, 1995;Masson et al, 2007), number of active clients (Chow et al, 1995;Masson et al, 2007), number of employees (Pfohl and Zollner, 1997), number of employees involved in SCM, number of active SKUs (Chow et al, 1995;Lowson, 2007), number of distribution centres (Rao and Young, 1994;Pfohl and Zollner, 1997;Hoffer and Knemeyer, 2009), number of orders processed (Rao and Young, 1994;Hoffer and Knemeyer, 2009), and number of product launches per year (Rao and Young, 1994;Hoffer and Knemeyer, 2009).…”

The relationship between the logistics complexity of manufacturing companies and their supply chain management

“…Although only Number of suppliers, Number of active SKUs, and Number of distribution centers cannot be considered significant at .10 level -acceptable within exploratory research in logistics (WANKE; ZINN, 2004) -F tests conducted should be considered only for descriptive purposes, as clusters have been chosen so as to maximize the differences among cases in each cluster (HAIR; ANDERSON; TATHAM, 1998). Additionally, there seems to be evidence in the literature that operational complexity and size are related as previously discussed (MASTERS et al, 1992;KATZ, 1998;DROGE, 1995).…”

“…So, for the purpose of this research, the level of complexity in logistics of a company can be gauged (in terms of quantifiable scales) by measures of size (MASTERS et al, 1992;DROGE, 1995;PFOHL;ZOLLNER, 1997) HENRIKSSON, 1995;MASSON et al, 2007), number of employees (PFOHL; ZOLLNER, 1997), number of employees involved in supply chain management, number of active SKUs (CHOW; HEAVER; HENRIKSSON, 1995;LOWSON, 2007), number of distribution centers (RAO;Young, 1994;PFOHL;ZOLLNER, 1997;HOFFER;KNEMEYER, 2009), number of orders processed (RAO; YOUNG, 1994;HOFFER;KNEMEYER, 2009), and number of product launches per year (RAO;YOUNG, 1994;HOFFER;KNEMEYER, 2009).…”

Innovation, knowledge and information management in supply chains

“…Many ideas such as cross-docking, containerization, and even green reverse logistics are technological innovations that have been discussed in the supply chain literature (Grawe, 2009;Hazen et al, 2012). Electronic data interchange (EDI) is an information technology used to exchange data across organisations (Germain & Droge, 1995) that is addressed as a technological innovation in a variety of past SCM studies (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2001;Narayanan et al, 2009). ICT can help a company to put in place a radical new value chain that can deliver value to the customer in an innovative and economical way (Markides & Anderson, 2006).…”