| Summary: | Market-driven supply chains and intense competitions require the collaboration among various supply chain (SC) participants to foster access to in-depth knowledge and complementary resources of every stage in SC. This dissertation is a case study about CereCo (the firm’s real name has been disguised), a cement manufacturer in China to discuss the issues of supply chain collaboration (SCC) in Chinese cement industry. As suppliers of coal and fly ash are also its customers, CereCo’s 3-tier SC has fewer participants compared with other companies and industries, which provides a simple background of SCC in reality. The purpose of the research is to explore how SCC helped a cement manufacturer in China, in details, the way to perform SCC, and costs decreased because of SCC.
Both qualitative and quantitative research strategies are used in this research. 22 interviewees from CereCo, its suppliers and transport providers involved in personal interviews, telephone interviews and focus groups. Observations were conducted to collect primary data as well. Documents were used to collect secondary data to support the analysis. Two research questions are solved through the research. Firstly, this paper identifies the way to execute SCC, including CPFR and the establishment of the cross-organisational and cross-functional team. The latter makes up the deficiency of fewer discussions in building cross-functional teams among different organisations. Secondly, CereCo executes SCC to relieve its previous operation problems, so it is valuable to qualify the impacts of SCC through comparing changes in inventory costs, transportation costs and quality control costs before and after collaboration. In a word, the research on CereCo’s SCC presidents a considerable effort in assessing the way to perform SCC and its impacts, which offer insights to other Chinese cement manufacturers with similar background.
Key Words: Supply Chain Collaboration, Cement Manufacturer, Impacts
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