Supply chain management in Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta (PRD) manufacturing industry

Abstract

This research project aims at studying the supply chain management practices in Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta and Mainland China, at the same time developing a self-assessment system for manufacturing industry to assess their current supply chain management performance. The assessment system has been built with the shell of Intelligent Decision System to accommodate the supply chain management critical success factors identified with the use of Analytic Hierarchy Process and Evidential Reasoning approach. The self-assessment system enables the organization to identify its strength and weakness, prioritize areas for improvement, and also learn the best practices. Basically, this research project can be divided into five phases. First, investigation of the supply chain management practices in both HK/PRD and Mainland China was conducted. Then, identification and categorization of the critical factors for supply chain management implementation was carried out based on extensive literature review and the survey results. The third phase was to validate these critical factors and obtain the relative weighting of each factor using Analytic Hierarchy Process. Following that the self-assessment system was developed with the combined application of intelligent decision system, and evidential reasoning approach using the critical factors identified and validated. Verification of the self-assessment system was done in the last phase. Questionnaire survey was used to study the supply chain management practices in HK/PRD and Mainland China. The survey results of both HK/PRD and Mainland China showed the importance of developing trusting relationship with customers and suppliers. It was observed that HK/PRD’s SCM practice is more mature than Mainland China. Survey results show that top and middle management are committed to improving supply chain practice. The hindrance experienced by Mainland China manufacturing firms included factors such as people resistance to change, no continuous improvements, lack of expertise to initiate supply chain implementation, and the lack of advanced information systems to support effective communication. The lack of supply chain management experts to handle supply chain management related issues explained why only 16% had already launched supply chain management compared to HK/PRD’s 28%. For the AHP analysis, critical factors for supply chain management are grouped into four main criteria, namely, Internal Organization, Supply Chain Relationship Management, Competitive Supply Chain Strategies, and Performance Measurement System. They were further decomposed into four layers to form a house of supply chain management. The lowest level is Internal Organization, then Supply Chain Relationship Management and Competitive Supply Chain Strategies, Performance Measurement System is regarded as the roof of the house. The expert interview results also reflected that Mainland China was still situated at the first layer, Internal Organization, while HK/PRD was at the third layer, Competitive Supply Chain Strategies. The self-assessment system developed has been found to provide useful guide and support for organizations intending to go down the road of SCM. On the whole the research has been successful to enable the organizations diagnose its own SCM performance.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2007
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Kwai Sang CHIN (Supervisor)