Logistics has been defined as the integration of somewhat disparate activities of transportation, procurement, inventoly control, distribution management, and customer service and has received a major thrust in many firms in recent years. Realizing the synergies that exist in these junctions, many companies have extended the concept further upstream and downstream outside the company to include vendors and their vendors and customers and their customers. Supply chain management, as the concept is now called, consists oj the entire set of processes, procedure, the supporting institutions, and business practices thac link buyers and sellers in a marketplace jor effectively managing the flow of materials from suppliers to final customers. Many experts have proposed large scale adoption of supply chain concepts and integration among supply chain members. While some companies have initiated supply chain integration with a lot of fanfare, others have questioned the rationale for sharing confidential and often proprietary data with supply chain partners. What were the challenges that the firms faced jor integrating their apply chain networks? Which firms are willing to integrate and under what conditions? Which ones do not find the proposition appealing and why? In this paper, we examine these issues and challenges faced by companies in integrating their supply chain networks and present a contingency theory to explain the nature and extent of supply chain integration in various firms under various circumstances.
competitiveness, integration, logistics, supply chain management
