Supplier Relationship Management: a review focused on Logistics and Production integration

Abstract

Integrating information regarding planning, decisions and processes within a focal company and between companies is a primary challenge for many organizations. Both internal (among business functions) and external (between suppliers and customers) integration aim to maximize the value added to customers and to minimize the required efforts involved in integration. However, identifying which activities demand a higher level of integration among business functions and what the possible results are is not always easy to understand, both within the organization and among their relationships. The purpose of this paper is therefore to understand the integration between Logistics and Production in supplier relationship management (SRM) by performing a systematic literature review. A systematic literature review was conducted as a research method of this paper, followed by a critical analysis of the selected works in order to thoroughly identify how these functions participate in the main activities of the SRM process. As a result, it was realized that integrating Logistics and Production may contribute to supplier relationship management by sharing information on strategic supply specifications (time and sequence) and also by improving the flow of information/materials to meet quality, quantity, cost and time requirements for the customer.

Keywords

• Literature systematic review
• Logistics
• Production
• Supplier relationship management