Supply Chain Innovation – 5W1H

Abstract

Introduction: Currently in the globalized economy and amplified international trade have expanded supply chains throughout the world, which necessarily has given rise to new dependencies. Companies are striving towards new supply chain innovation opportunities to become more efficient and resilient through redundancy.

Objectives: Council for supply chain management awards the firms for their innovation in supply chain. Since 2005, 17 firms have been awarded till 2022. The objective of this research is: To identify what motivated firms to try innovation? To give a brief description about the case of each firm for which they innovated? To list the characteristics of innovation. To identify weather the innovation is radical innovation or an incremental innovation.

Methods: In this article, we explore supply chain innovation by the cases taken from supply chain innovation award winners of council of supply chain management professional and supply chain brain. The cases are then evaluated to answer the objectives.

Results: After categorizing the innovation under radical innovation or incremental innovation it was more the radical innovation was common amongst the companies.

Conclusions: The factor driving innovation is the thrust for the companies to cut down cost of supply chain to be competitive and sustainability. The companies were able to be innovative by leveraging of state-of-the-art technology available at that particular point in time, by encouraging organizational cultural changes, by Integration and collaboration for efficiency and effectiveness, by adopting design thinking approach, top down and bottom-up participation of all stake holders and kaizen approach