The evolution of supply-chain management into extended enterprise

In today's highly competitive, volatile and increasingly global manufacturing environment, manufacturing companies are increasingly aware of the need for agility and effectiveness at the supply-chain level, rather than simply at company level. Business process re-engineering and the resulting emphasis on core competence have influenced a move towards de-centralisation, flatter organisation structures and increased use of "outsourcing". It has been said that it is now supply-chain versus supply-chain and that this poses both opportunity and threat for many organisations, especially SMEs. While some work has been done in relation to developing the concept of integrated supply-chains, relatively little has been published with respect to the concept of "extended enterprise (EE)", the "highest" level of inter-enterprise integration. The major contribution of this paper lies in the bringing together of concepts from supply-chain management, strategic planning and management, concurrent engineering, project/programme management, CIM and human resource management, into development and illustration of an organisational structure based on a project/programme management approach that has the potential to support the effective identification, rationalisation and deployment of core competence across EE.