Autor: Frank Straube

The internationalisation of business activities has numerous impacts on global supply chain structure. Certain Supply Networks will have special logistics requirements. The orientation on the selected production network structure can be a first structuring approach. For global logistics that means that instead of standardized logistics principles a situation dependent reaction on the specific challenges of the international activities of a company is needed.

Production systems in multi-tier value networks are nowadays facing major challenges with regard to supply network operations planning. Many existing solutions neglect feedback mechanisms and operate under the assumption of isolated supply chains. However, even for intra-enterprise planning across production plants, hurdles hamper a successful business usage. As an innovative approach decentralized planning grounds on consensus-like agreements between equal partners - both intra- and inter-enterprise - through communicative, negotiation-like processes. Thus research activities aim at developing appropriate coordination mechanisms for decision making in tactical operations planning between independent supply chain partners for yielding consistent plans.

The emergence of internet technologies has led to a fundamental transformation of value chains. For logistics service providers in particular new revenue sources and new roles in supply chains evolve. E-logistics helps to reduce the transaction costs in supply chains and hence increases the willingness for outsourcing. The ability to integrate seamlessly into customer processes, which can be referred to as collaboration capability, is a central competitive factor in the outsourcing industry. Also in this area e-logistics plays the role of an innovation driver. This article discusses the potentials and barriers of e-logistics initiatives and collaboration for logistics service providers and their customers and structures the design parameters of collaboration through a methodology.