| dc.description.abstract | Background &
Purpose:
Supply chain management (SCM) has become a hot topic in the current
global competitive markets that drives many companies to explore,
especially in inventory management. Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) as
an SCM method enables all participants in the supply chain to achieve rapid
development and obtained huge benefits. Under the VMI model,
manufacturers/distributors give the inventory management responsibility to
the suppliers to increase the inventory efficiency. One Swedish healthcare
company desire to increase the supply chain resilience and save supply chain
cost, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic and would like to implement
the VMI model with its supplier. The two research questions in this thesis
are 1) How can a healthcare company in Sweden implement the VMI model
with its vendor? and, 2) What risks are associated with implementing VMI
with a vendor for a healthcare company in Sweden?
Method:
This thesis is a qualitative study focus on one single Swedish healthcare
company. There are ten interviews conducted within the Swedish healthcare
company and its vendor. The research strategy is to obtain data from
literature reviews and interviews based on the two research questions and
then compare the similarities and differences for analysis.
Results:
The implementation process of VMI has summarized in two steps. The first
step is VMI preparation, which includes Choose Product Assortment,
Supplier Selection, IT Foundation, VMI Project Team, Risk Analysis. The
Second step is VMI implementation, which includes Sign VMI Contract,
VMI Training and VMI Process Set Up.
Based on theoretical and empirical data, the author developed a conceptional
risk management model for VMI. Through analysis, the author identified 13
risk factors in five dimensions. In addition, a new dimension, Change
Management, is added to the existing supply chain risk management model
from Tang (2006). In this new conceptional model, the risk factors are
supplier relationship, inventory control, lack of resources, supply network
design, contract, which belongs to Supply Management. Product
diversification, substitution bundling, and standardization belong to Product
Management. IT system support belongs to Information Management. Lack
of resources, keep frequent and large orders, more responsibility from
marketing belong to Demand Management. Moreover, fear to change, long
lead time for employees to learn a new system, and lack of knowledge about
VMI belong to Change Management. | sv |
