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This paper seeks to evaluate the implications of operations flexibility in industrial supply chains and the effect it has on supporting initiatives designed for build‐to‐order (BTO) manufacturing.

An industrial case study is used to investigate operations flexibility and its impact on industrial supply chains. Tools used in the analysis include value stream mapping (VSM) and a scorecard for performance measurement. The scorecard tool comprises daily utilisation figures, product demand and responsiveness measures such as supply chain cycle times and pipeline inventory.

The results of the analysis confirm that supply chain VSM and scorecarding are effective tools that can be used to measure the performance of supply chains through the identification of inefficiencies associated with supply chain integration/design. The analysis shows the duration of value‐adding and non‐value adding activities in the entire chain. Also, the analysis has revealed the close relationship between operations flexibility and the supply chain flexibility dimensions of people and information systems.

The research presented analyses the operations and the supply chain of one industrial case study. The analysis does not cover the life cycle of the products mentioned in the study.

The study addresses the need, in the manufacturing industry, for tools that can be used in the analysis of manufacturing operations and supply chains, ultimately providing guidelines that can be used in the design of policies focused on performance improvement.

BTO initiatives are growing in importance in the manufacturing industry. The flexibility of operations and the supply chain are closely related to the concept of BTO in manufacturing.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can be considered as cornerstone that allows most organizations to achieve their business goals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of ERP system usage on agility in organizations.

The data were collected from 90 branches of well-known banks in the Middle East, such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and Arab Bank. Data were analyzed using a path analysis methodology.

A new model has been developed. An empirical investigation was performed on the banking sector in the Middle East to test the new model. Despite the results showing that the impact of ERP system usage on banks’ agility is significant, the variance of banks’ agility that is explained by the use of ERP systems is weak. This indicates that ERP usage may not influence sufficiently the current agility drivers in Middle-Eastern banks and that there may be other significant variables that contribute to agility in the banking sector.

The findings of this research were based on a survey conducted among banks in the Middle East. The results are applicable in Middle-Eastern banks, but may not be applicable in other regions.

Banking practitioners in the Middle East should be aware that successful implementation of ERP systems may not lead to the achievement of sufficient competency, flexibility, quickness, and responsiveness. Hence, such implementation may not deliver banking agility.

This research model investigates the impact of ERP usage on the agility of banks in the Middle East.

The general purpose of the paper is to improve supply chain (SC) responsiveness and agility by developing advanced planning and scheduling (APS) with collaboration process into agile supply and demand networks (ASDN).

Some industrial examples are presented to extract the APS requirements, then business models that are supported by analytical models are developed into APS modules to respond to the requirements. At the end, the modules are attached into an ASDN simulator to measure the benefit of the APS with collaboration process.

The results show that the APS with collaboration process is superior to existing APS software in terms of promising lead times to customers at minimum inventory level.

Since the APS with collaboration process cannot optimize transportation planning, SCs cannot therefore optimize networks by finding the optimum network configuration. Currently, the simulator needs to be tested in several possible network scenarios to find the optimal network configuration.

The APS with collaboration process makes it possible to give guaranteed lead times at minimum inventory level. Furthermore, it is possible to combine the APS with collaboration process with enterprise resources planning or MRP II by considering the criticality of the planning.

The attachment of APS with collaboration process business into ASDN represents the original aspect of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relationships among the flexibility enablers and to prepare a hierarchy of these enablers to know their influences over each other in global supply chain. The framework suggests that the priority of enablers in supply chain should be determined on the basis of their driving power and dependency.

Various enablers used by researchers and practitioners for flexibility management of global supply chain have been identified. These enablers have been classified as strategic, operational and performance‐based enablers. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to establish mutual relationships among the flexibility enablers and to prepare a hierarchy‐based model.

It has been observed that some enablers having high‐driving power and low dependency are of strategic importance. These enablers require more attention while other enablers based on operations and performances are dependents of strategic enablers.

The index of enablers based on driving power and dependency provides an insight to supply chain managers to make the entire supply chain highly flexible and help them to respond to global uncertainties.

Presentation of enablers in the form of hierarchy using ISM and ranking them into various driving power and dependent categories is a good effort to make flexible global supply chain.

In a growing number of competitive sectors with closed‐loop supply chains, the reverse component has become an inherent part of the business, not to mention a core competence; hence the need to have performance measures that can be used to provide an accurate diagnosis of the state of the supply chain by addressing both its forward and its reverse components. It is also important to identify the level of existing integration between parties, as this has been associated with supply chain performance. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Elements gathered from the literature reviewed are used to present a set of measures that can be applied for auditing purposes in: the forward supply chain; product returns and reverse logistics; flows of materials and information and integration between supply chain tiers. To illustrate the use of the proposed set of measures for auditing purposes a case study involving a major European mobile phone network operator was analysed using the operator's own brand of handsets characterised for having a closed‐loop supply chain.

The proposed set of measures for auditing purposes provide an overall picture of the performance of a closed‐loop supply chain by revealing high levels of stock for the products analysed, consequence of the difficulty to generate accurate forecasts and the accumulation of high quantities of product prior to launch. Also the methodology presented in this paper identifies links between product returns (faulty and non‐faulty) to operations in the forward component of the supply chain (design, sourcing, manufacturing and forecasting) and also indicates how performance is affected because of integration.

The proposed set of measures for auditing purposes is relevant to closed‐loop supply chains which are related to products with short life cycles and during their lifetime can experience faulty and non‐faulty returns. The scope of the study presented may look limited; however, the application of the performance measures presented in this research can become a fundamental component of larger audit exercises. Further research should be carried out with supply chains on products with lifetime cycles that span long periods of time.

For industry sectors with closed‐loop supply chains, the availability of a set of measures that address the forward and reverse components plus integration can provide a detailed picture of the performance of value streams over traditional approaches to measurement that focus on only one component of the supply chain. The set of measures has the potential to be used to achieve better customer service and reduction in costs involving shipping, warehousing, labour and call centres.

The contribution of this research on closed‐loop supply chains is a methodology that defines performance measures for auditing purposes of the forward and reverse components of supply chains and assists in assessing the importance of integration between different tiers of supply chains.

To critically review business trends and drivers affecting the performance of supply chains and build‐to‐order initiatives.

This is a comprehensive review of the potential implications of two inbound logistics solutions: supplier parks and the notion of full‐service‐vehicle supply in addition to developing technologies such as web services interoperability, radio frequency identification (RFID) and collaborative product commerce (CPC).

It is expected that the wide adoption/consolidation of supplier parks and full‐service‐vehicle supply and technologies such as web services interoperability, RFID and CPC will facilitate/promote the adoption of build‐to‐order initiatives.

The business models and technologies presented in this paper have been developed and exploited mainly in the automotive sector. Their success could have a big impact if transferred to other industries. Only a handful of technologies/business models affecting supply chain management have been reviewed.

The widespread use of the technologies and inbound logistics solutions presented in this paper might require the development of sophisticated measurement tools to assess the performance of the entire supply chain. The developed tool has to capture the state of the supply chain in terms of synchronisation, bullwhip effect, pipeline inventory, cycle times, stockout and backorder incidents plus other metrics associated to the operation of the firm including sunk costs, invested capital and ROI.

This paper provides a sound review on technologies and business models critical for supply chains developing build‐to‐order capabilities.

Information systems have received special attention in the literature on agile manufacturing. Some authors have rated IS as critical, important and ultimately required for the agile enterprise. However, it is not quite clear the extension or involvement of information systems in achieving and supporting agility in manufacturing. On the other hand, the failure of IS to deliver expected benefits has been documented in different sectors, including manufacturing. The results of a case study involving two SMEs are used to identify clearly the role of information systems within the concept of agility and then used to develop a framework that ensures that information systems provide benefits to manufacturing organisations through enhancing the agility of its manufacturing processes.