Title: Degree of standardisation, agility and supply chain performance

Authors: Jouni Juntunen, Vesa Autere, Mari Juntunen

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, Oulu 90014, Finland. ' Department of Leadership and Military Pedagogy, National Defence University, P.O. Box 7, FI-00861 Helsinki, Finland. ' Department of Marketing, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, Oulu 90014, Finland

Abstract: The inflexibility of a supply chain can be costly to companies and may additionally impair their ability to serve customers to their satisfaction. This paper studies possibilities to improve performance in the supply chain with higher degree of standardisation and agility. The aim is to examine how standardisation leads to agility and how agility consequently leads to better performance of the company. The data consist of 149 responses. Respondents were from military forces, the public sector and private businesses. Thus, there are important practical implications for logistics managers in volatile business environments of today.

Keywords: service levels; standardisation; modularity; agility; cost performance; SCM; supply chain management; inflexibility; customer satisfaction; company performance; military forces; public sector; private business; logistics managers; Finland; Finnish Defence Forces; services; standards.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSS.2010.036170

International Journal of Services and Standards, 2010 Vol.6 No.2, pp.112 - 122

Published online: 25 Oct 2010 *

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