Supply chain management challenges in the South African public sector

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (44) ◽  
pp. 11003-11014 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Ambe Intaher ◽  
A Badenhorst Weiss Johanna
Author(s):  
Poobalan Pillay ◽  
Chengedzai Mafini

Background: The construction industry in South Africa has a lot of potential but its performance is still restricted by numerous internal and external challenges. Unless these challenges are identified and understood better, further growth of this industry is likely to be hindered, which has negative economic implications for the South African economy.Objectives: This study investigated supply chain bottlenecks faced by the construction industry in South Africa. It also discussed solutions for addressing the identified bottlenecks in order to facilitate the continued development of supply chain management in the construction industry.Method: The study used a qualitative approach in which in-depth interviews were held with purposively selected senior managers drawn from the construction industry in South Africa. Content analysis using ATLAS.ti software was employed to identify the themes from the collected data.Findings: The findings of the study showed that supply chain management in the construction industry in South Africa is constrained by five major bottlenecks: skills and qualifications, procurement practices and systems, supply chain integration, supply chain relationships and the structure of the construction industry. Recommendations for addressing each of these five challenges were put forward.Conclusion: The study concludes that both awareness and application of supply chain management in the construction industry in South Africa remains inhibited, which creates opportunities for further improvements in this area to realise the full potential of the industry.


Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Mathu

Background: The study background looked at the advent of supply chain management in the last generation which ushered in technology that drives information-sharing within, and across enterprises. The information flow facilitates synchronisation of business activities, such as relationship-building, supply chain management among others.Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate how information technology (IT) application in the South African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) enhanced supplier-customer information sharing.Setting: Interviews were conducted with SMEs samples that comprised mixed owner-managers from food, and general trading SMEs in Gauteng Province of South Africa.Methods: A qualitative research methodology was used, and a non-probability sampling process was pursued.Results: The results indicated that IT application in the South African SMEs enhanced supplier-customer information-sharing, as it improved interaction through supply chain collaboration and integration.Conclusion: The conclusion of the study highlighted that IT application in enterprises as obtained from South African SMEs enhanced supplier-customer information-sharing.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-391
Author(s):  
Rebecca Setino ◽  
Intaher Marcus Ambe

The South African government’s supply chain management (SCM) system is not adequately implemented in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). There are weaknesses in the SOEs SCM enablers, strategies, policy implementation and poor enforcement of government SCM rules and regulations. This is resulting in governance and compliance failures, waste and fraudulent activities. Also, top management of SOEs still do not see SCM as strategic enough to deserve their attention, and therefore, there is little support from senior management, thus making it even more difficult for SCM practitioners to execute their day-to-day functions, let alone deliver the letter and spirit of the relevant legislation. In most SOEs Senior SCM practitioners have not been involved in the corporate strategy development. This has led to supply chain and organisational strategies being misaligned. The misalignment has resulted in service delivery backlog, high levels of corruption and continuous strikes across the country for better services. Given the massive expenditure and the financial challenges facing government, an effective public-sector SCM becomes a primary requirement. Government leaders should be more strategic around using SCM as a tool to improve service delivery. This article explores supply chain practices in SOEs. It is based on a conceptual review of SCM practices in the South African SOE environment and suggests that the supply chain and organisational strategies of SOEs must be aligned to ensure efficient delivery of public services.


Author(s):  
Ayanda Nteta ◽  
Justine Mushonga

Background: The cement industry in South Africa is lagging behind the green supply chain management (GSCM) revolution that has influenced many sectors to re-evaluate their supply chain systems.Objective: This study was conducted to determine the significant drivers of and barriers to the implementation of GSCM in the South African cement industry, and thus to investigate the impediments to the implementation of GSCM in the cement industry.Method: A mixed-method approach was used to collect data from various role-players in the cement value chain. Geometric means were calculated from the scores of the survey conducted. Interviews were also conducted to confirm the results of the survey. An analytical hierarchy process technique ranked the individual drivers and barriers using the results from pairwise comparisons conducted. After ranking the drivers and barriers, a Pareto analysis was applied to determine the most significant drivers and barriers for the South African cement industry.Results: Overall, the seven most significant sub-drivers fall into three categories of main drivers: financial performance, competitors and organisational style. Ten barriers were identified as most significant and were categorised into five themes, namely, high capital costs, poor supplier commitment, high certification costs, weak marketing positioning and lack of awareness of GSCM.Conclusion: The identification of these drivers and barriers contributes to further research on improvements to GSCM process in the cement industry. The study shows that drivers of and barriers to the implementation of GSCM are not universally standard, and the ranking varies from one industry to another and from one country to another.


Author(s):  
Mamokgadi Z. Masete ◽  
Chengedzai Mafini

Background: The demand for higher education in South Africa continues to increase, placing pressure on public higher education institutions to satisfy this demand. Supply chain management is one of the practices that may be implemented to ensure that public universities improve their operations and can, therefore, meet the increased demand for higher education in the country.Objectives: This study aimed to explore the barriers to the implementation of supply chain management practices at a South African public university.Method: The study used a qualitative case study approach using a sample of 17 members of management and staff at a South African traditional university in the Limpopo Province. Data were collected using a combination of a focus group discussion and semi-structured in-depth interviews.Results: The study generated eight themes that embody the barriers to the implementation of supply chain management at the institution. These themes were labelled as stakeholder buy-in, knowledge of supply chain management, supply chain systems and processes, procurement policy and practices, implementation of supply chain management, stakeholder change management, human resource management and organisational culture.Conclusion: Various internal barriers impair the implementation of supply chain management practices at the institution. Administration at the institution has invested limited resources, time and initiatives to ensure the successful implementation of supply chain management. The focus should be directed to finding lasting solutions to each of the barriers identified in this study. Further studies should address the issue of external barriers to supply chain management in public higher education institutions.


Author(s):  
Orestes Peristeris ◽  
Peter J. Kilbourn ◽  
Jacobus Walters

Background: In an increasingly competitive business world, businesses need to be able to measure the effectiveness of their supply chain management process practices against proven best practice frameworks. A number of these frameworks exist internationally but have to be used within the context of knowing the relative strengths and weaknesses of potential benchmarking frameworks. Two such frameworks were identified in the research and a case was made to use one such framework, the Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF) framework, to measure the effectiveness of the supply chain practices of a leading confectionery manufacturing company in South Africa.Objective of the research: The purpose of the research was to identify an international best practice framework, which could be used by South African manufacturing organisations to benchmark their supply chain management (SCM) practices.Methodology: The methodology followed was a literature review of the existing SCM frameworks to identify a framework, which would be the most suited to the objective of the study, followed by a case study of a leading manufacturing organisation’s SCM practices benchmarked against those found in the framework.Results and conclusions: The main finding of the case study was that there is a high degree of adherence between the case study organisation’s SCM practices and those found in the SCM framework. There was also generally a high level of importance ascribed by respondents to the best practices contained by the GSCF framework. It was therefore concluded that the GSCF framework proved to be a useful instrument for a comprehensive analysis of supply chain management processes and practices for a manufacturer in the fast moving consumer goods industry, with potential for applications by organisations in the supply chains of other industries.


Author(s):  
Boitumelo Pooe ◽  
◽  
Virimai Mugobo ◽  

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the challenges South African fashion designers experienced when managing their supply chain network in the retail clothing industry. In today’s complex markets, the susceptibility of the supply chain is viewed as an ongoing issue for several industries and it is no different for fashion designers. As a result, in the past, the visibility of South African fashion designers in the retail environment appeared to be minimal, due to a number of challenges. This paper is based on qualitative research that made use of in-depth semi-structured interviews with a total of twenty-four participants, with the sample divided into five groups representing different industry professionals. Semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to answer the questions unreservedly based on their own personal and professional experiences. The findings revealed that South African fashion designers in the retail industry experienced a number of supply chain challenges such as cash flow and funding, fabric, challenges associated with cutting, making and trimming (CMT) companies, skills and knowledge, fashion designer’s business acumen, market access and location, human skilled resources, garment and production quality, fragmentation, costing, marketing, competition, and other isolated challenges that were mentioned by a few participants. The practical implications of this paper include the need for responsible stakeholders to put in place mechanisms to reduce the supply-chain-management challenges South African fashion designers are facing in the retail clothing industry. As a result, close proximity supply chain networks that could support effective communication amongst members of the supply chain are recommended.


Author(s):  
Thomas F. Humphrey

The University of Rhode Island requested an assessment of the potential demand for developing new academic programs in the areas of transportation and logistics. Although the research focused on Rhode Island public- and private-sector organizations, it was concluded that the results have broader applications for the academic community. The research was accomplished by interviewing a total of 24 key executives in four large private companies and five large public-sector organizations. The questions focused on “skills required to do your job.” The interviews resulted in the following conclusions: ( a) a distinct difference must be made between education needs, training needs, and outreach needs; ( b) concerning public agency needs, responses tracked closely to the several national studies that have taken place over the past several years; ( c) private-sector organizations view logistics and supply chain management as critical to their bottom line; ( d) there appears to be a common interest among interviewees for universities to establish more outreach programs; ( e) private-sector companies all expressed possible interest in targeted logistics and supply chain management programs (certificate programs or individual courses could be of interest, either as traditional classroom or Internet-based); ( f) definite interest existed among public agencies to establish courses and distance-learning–based certificate programs in “transportation policy and management” (the author's label); and ( g) there were a surprising number of common needs.


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