FURNITURE INDUSTRY IN RESTRUCTURING : SYSTEMS & TOOLS

FURNITURE INDUSTRY IN RESTRUCTURING : SYSTEMS & TOOLS

Guidelines Supply chain management

Co-funded by the EUROPEAN UNION

European Social Fund
Article 6 Innovative measures
 Contents
1. What is meant by SC 4
1.1. Source/Make/Deliver 4

2. Performance and trade-off 6

3. SC main strategies 7
3.1. Lean 8
3.2. Responsive 8
3.3. Risk hedging 8
3.4. Agile 8

4. Levers for SC configuration 9

4.1. Deliver 9
4.2. Source 10
4.3. Outsourcing 13
4.4. Collaborative SCM 14
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
 Introduction
The globalization is changing the structure of labor intensive industries
such as the furniture industry. Increased imports at lower prices force the
European manufacturers to look for competitive edges and if necessary to
restructure their operations. Some looked at their business model, other
at the product, the production, productivity or the relation with the final
consumer or a combination of some or all of these different aspects.
The solutions, some more successful than others they come up with are
multiple.
The FIRST project has the ambition to look into this subject with the aim to
formulate recommendations to serve as inspiration to manufacturers.
The methodology used was to analyze 30 companies that either went to a
restructuring or that had particular characteristics in one or more aspects of
their business that allows them to (better) cope with the problems arising
from the globalization. This analysis should lead to business models from
which guidelines on specific strategies could be distilled.

Case studies mapping

Best practices 4-5 recurrent

Business Models

NPD BM1 BM2

SCM
Guidelines
Collaboration
HR BM3 BM4

During the work it rapidly became clear that there are almost as many
business models as there are companies, and on suggestion of the advisory
board of the project, it was decided to concentrate on guidelines for practical
strategies in specific fields rather than develop entire business models.
The advisory board also suggested to formulate these guidelines in short
separate formats easily usable by interested manufacturers.
This way the work resulted in the formulation of six guidelines around
specific activities: product development and innovation, supply chain ma-
nagement, industrial co-operation, outsourcing, human resource ma-
nagement and electronic communications. In parallel the partners developed
a sub contracting database for manufactures interested in co-operation as
an instrument of increasing such co-operation between manufacturers in the
EU and especially with manufacturers in the most recent EU Member States.
Information on the project and on the database can be found on the UEA
web site www.ueanet.com.

The analytical work has been done by the partners under the leadership and
guidance of the MIP, the Polytechnic University of Milan and of AIDIMA, the
Spanish technical furniture center. BFM, MEDIFA and the UEA and some of
its other members contributed in the best practices and the redaction of the
guidelines. Ifabrick, the information department of MEDIFA was responsible
for the Web site and database.

The current booklet formulates guidelines for the optimization of the furniture
supply chain. It is not meant to suggest that European furniture manu-
facturers should follow the strategies described, but the booklet wants to
contribute to the reflection on this subject by those manufacturers who feel
that it might fit into their business model. We hope it serves them well.

Bart De Turck
UEA secretary general
FIRST project manager

3
 1. What is meant by SC

1.1. Source/Make/Deliver

The ever-evolving context brings forward the level of competition: the firm
success does not only depend onto the management of core activities, but
also on supply relations and management. So, upwards and downwards
the supply chain, a company need to manage relationships with clients and
suppliers. Naturally, the developing outsourcing tendency fosters this ne-
cessity.
Despite the term “supply chain management” (SCM) first appeared in li-
terature during the 80s it has its roots in the 60s, when the Council of Supply
Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) gave a definition of physical dis-
tribution. In the 80s SCM started to address the integration of information
and material flows, from raw materials suppliers to end customers. During
the 90s a variety of terms flourished, very similar indeed: network sourcing,
supply pipeline management, network supply chain, supply base ma-
nagement, value chain management, value stream management. Today, a
consolidated and comprehensive definition of SCM is provided by Metz: SCM
is a process-oriented approach to managing product, information and funds
flow across the overall supply network, from the initial suppliers to the final
end consumers.

The key elements of this definition are the following:

• Process management. It implies the coordination of activities even

outside firm’s boundaries. Such processes are shown in Figure 1.
• Physical, information and fund flows. Production and transport
of raw material, components and end products is in place. Moreover,
each activities is associated with information indispensable for the firms
involved. Physical flows mainly go downwards, information flow, on the
contrary, mainly go upwards (e.g. demand forecasting data are shared in
order to plan production and, in turn, purchasing). At the end, financial
flows go upwards from buyer firms to suppliers. According to a cooperative
perspective it is fundamental to correctly split the value throughout the
chain, in order to implement transaction that satisfies all the partners.
• Supply and distribution network. From the outside, the supply chain
appears as a sequential series of companies, even if each phase of the
sequence is almost never made of one single firm, both because firms
have many clients and suppliers and complex products requires materials,
parts and sub-assemblies. As a consequence, from the inside (i.e. from
the perspective of a single firm) a supply chain is made of two distinct
networks: one upstream and one downstream (see Figure 2).

More and more SCM research field has been connected to strategy and or-
ganization rather than to logistics and physical distribution, as testified by
the recent attention to services.

4
 Customer relationship management
New product development
Demand management and forecasting
Order fulfillment
Manufacturing flow management and logistics
Customer service management
Supplier relationship management
Reverse Logistics

Figure 1. SCM processes

Horizontal: supplier per level

Upstream network Downstream network

a
1 1
l l

Market
2 2
m j

b i
n

2nd level 1st level Firm 1st level 2nd level

suppliers suppliers customers customers

Figure 2. Supply and distribution networks

The Supply Chain Council (SCC) has developed and endorsed the Supply
Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR) as the cross-industry standard
for supply chain management. Process reference models integrate the well-
known concepts of business process reengineering, benchmarking, and
process measurement into a cross-functional framework.

plan

deliver source make deliver Source make deliver source make deliver source

Suppliers’ Suppliers Focal company Customers Customers’

suppliers customers

Figure 3. SCOR model

5
 2. Performance and trade-off

Several actors determine the overall supply chain performances. The two
most widely acknowledged performance measures are:

• Total logistic cost of the network;

• Service level delivered to the final customer.
Both of them are multi-dimensional concept (see Figure 4) and are
determined by the action of several organizational units (for instance
logistic cost comes from purchasing, warehousing, materials management,
marketing and sales and so on). A classical trade-off relation occurs between
these two indicators: actions aimed at containing total logistic cost risk
to decrease service level. The question is: how to improve logistic cost
either improving or at least keeping constant the service level? Through
innovation, information technology (IT) and cooperation along the supply
chain.
TOTAL LOGISTIC COST SERIVICE LEVEL

• Transportation cost • Delivery time

• Stock keeping cost, in • Timeliness
trade-off with
transportation cost
• Delivery reliability

• Order management cost

Figure 4. Supply chain trade-off

This trade-off is of great importance since the consequences of a poor service

level could be very dangerous for the supply chain. This is the reason why
customer and supplier within the chain should mutually agree in order to
maintain an high service level, not to loose end customers.
Every supply chain has to define its competitive priorities and evaluate the
best positioning in terms of logistic cost and service level. There are three
different approaches (see Figure 5):

• Marketing approach. The priority is given to service level, which

depends by competitors and customers expectations.
• Budget approach. The priority is given to the cost, trying to satisfy ad
much as possible customers’ requirements.
• Analytic approach. The objective is to optimize the trade-off. So the
cost and income functions have to be calculated depending on service level.
In theory, this approach assures the maximum profit. In practice, it is hard
to estimate the two mathematical functions. This approach is widely used
within the sector of consumer goods, where logistic cost and service level
are constantly monitored. It states however a conceptual principle: the
best service level is not necessarily the highest one. In fact, beyond a
certain threshold, costs starts to grow faster than benefits and the margin
decreases.
€ costs

income

Marketing
approach

Analytic
approach
Budget
approach Service level

Figure 5. Management of cost-service trade-off

6
3. SC main strategies

The supply chain can be managed differently, according to different key per-
formances addressed by firms in order to build their competitive advantage
and to the characteristics of the market.
In recent years, new supply chain strategies tried to move further the cost-
service trade-off described in the previous section, working both on speed
and efficiency. The emerging strategies depend on two dimensions (Product
and Process typology, see Figure 6), which lead to different supply chain
strategies (see Figure 7).

Product typology Process typology

Standard Innovative Stable Unstable
Mass distribution Unspecific Mature processes Technology and
and technologies production
processes
evolution
Stable demand Variable demand Wide and clear Narrow and
supply system unstable supply
system
Long life cycle Short life cycle Automation Continuous
operations fine-
tuning, variable
productivity
Stability generates High margins, due Medium-long term Spot supply
competition, that to product supply contracts contracts or
limits profit differentiation frequent
margins specifications
changes
Turbulence Short time window High quality Quality problems
induced by (Time To Market and process
speculative role) reliability
purchasing and
sales promotion

Figure 6. Product and Process classification

Standard Innovative
Process typology

Lean Responsive
Stable Supply Chain Supply Chain

Risk hedging Agile

Unstable Supply Chain Supply Chain

Figure 7. Supply chain management strategies

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 3.1. Lean

This strategy is applicable when demand forecasting accuracy and pro-

duction process stability are high. In such cases you can pursue logistic
cost minimization, i.e. a pure efficiency strategy. In particular, companies
try to eliminate or outsource every non value-adding activity, looking for
economies of scale in production. This often implies the centralization of
production planning and stock management for the whole supply chain and
the application of optimization techniques for operational costs reduction. In
order to coordinate a complex system and reduce lead times, it is of great
importance to automate the information exchange with suppliers.

3.2. Responsive

In some cases market demand is variable and products range is high, while
operational processes are settled. As a consequence, it is hard to plan requi-
rements in order to keep stocks low. On the other side, stable technologies
allow a flexible and reactive supply chain management. Procurement,
production and distribution lad-time reduction is fundamental, in order to
answer to customer needs.

3.3. Risk hedging

In other cases market demand can be forecasted but processes of pro-

curement, production and distribution are subjected to frequent changes.
The attention is then directed to minimize risks, which can be structural
(production capacity, quality, strikes, etc.) or anomalous (fires, floods, ear-
thquakes, etc.). Backup stocks are required in such cases. Otherwise, a firm
can adopt backup suppliers, in case traditional one would be no more able
to meet requirements. Like the other strategies, information systems help in
coordinating the different actors and having timely and accurate information
on stocks and demand along the chain.

3.4. Agile

The most difficult supply chains to manage are those where demand is highly
variable and processes are unstable. In such cases responsive and risk
hedging approaches should be combined. Some companies adopt different
supply chain strategies according to different products of different parts of
the chain.

8
4. Levers for SC configuration

4.1. Deliver

A critical aspect for the definition of supply chain configuration is represented

by the physical flows management techniques. There are two different alter-
natives: push and pull systems.

• Push systems require activating some stages of the chain in advance,

on the basis of forecasts of next stage requirements. This implies the use
of tools such as MRP (Material Requirement Planning) on production side
or DRP (Distribution Requirement Planning) on distribution side. Because
of the likelihood of forecasting errors push systems often count on safety
stocks on various supply chain stages.
• Pull systems allow starting the activities only after the next stage
manifests a need (explicit, such as a client order, or implicit, such as the
decrease of warehouse stocks). Pull systems require short lead times, in
order to quickly satisfy the requirement. Set-up times and machines queue
times are the most frequent causes of too long lead times: for this reason
pull systems often call either for technological investments or non-saturated
productive capacity aimed at reducing unproductive times. The JIT logic
is a typical example pull system adoption. However, when downstream
demand is highly variable, pull systems are not applicable.
• Postponement (see Figure 8). Recent supply strategies developments
allowed firms improving the cost-service trade-off, by moving upwards the
decoupling point, that is to say the point where the chain passes from one
system to the other. In other words, before the decoupling point components
are standardized and broken into modules as much as possible, so that
production can follow forecasts and, at the same time, the obsolescence
risk is low. On the other side, the reduction of production, assembly and
distribution times allow to reduce stock and postpone customization as
much as possible, according to pull systems.

Decoupling point

Market

Push logic Pull logic

Postponement

Market

Push logic Pull logic

Figure 8. Postponement

In particular, in term of delivery, the passage from one stage of the supply
chain to the other can be direct or intermediated, according to different
types of products and contexts. The two different solutions (direct delivery
and multi-level networks) are described in Figure 9.

9
 Direct deliveries Multi-level network

ƒ Direct deliveries ƒ Multi-stage distribution process

ƒ Few deliveries, high volumes with inventory accumulation in
ƒ Minimizing stocks, operational intermediate warehouses
costs and fixed assets (scale) ƒ Many deliveries, low volumes to
ƒ Minimize transportation costs: final customers
o Full-truckload (FTL) ƒ Minimising transportation costs
ƒ If delivery frequency increases o FTL trunking (upstream)
and volumes decreases, than: o LTL local distribution
o Less-then-truckload (LTL) (downstream)
o Smaller vehicles ƒ Higher service to the final
o Costs increase customers
o Outsourcing transportation

Figure 9. Direct delivery vs Multi-level network

4.2. Source

In order to understand key concepts in supply chain configurations from the

point of view of supply it is useful to introduce a reference model of pur-
chasing activities emerged from case studies.
Such activities can be classified into three different clusters (see Figure 10).
Some of them have a strategic relevance, like make or buy decisions, par-
tnership management and so on. As a consequence these are long term, and
therefore low-frequency, decisions. Some others are, on the contrary, more
operational and repetitive in nature: you can think to order management,
quality control, payment, etc. These activities follow the strategic ones and
take place by far more frequently. We can therefore represent the purchasing
process as a total of three processes: strategic purchasing, sourcing and
supply, where the second two represent the operational (or tactic) flow.

4.2.1. Strategic Purchasing

The Purchasing Department is responsible of coordinating strategic activities

with high impact on business as make or buy decisions, reverse marketing
leading to suppliers scouting and qualification, managing the supply base and
the suppliers’ portfolio over time and evaluating suppliers in order to improve
purchasing relationships. These strategic tasks are performed together with
other key departments within the organization providing useful competences
(e.g. Information Technology, Engineering), sometimes involving also the
top management. In particular, strategic purchasing is composed by 4 key
activities.

• Make or buy. This is the fundamental decision that origins the supply
need. It is a stand-alone decision and consist in: analysing the market
conditions in order to understand whether outsourcing is applicable or
vertical integration is preferred, looking at the drivers that leads towards
outsourcing (such as competences, costs and capital management) and,
eventually, considering which is the most advisable contract agreement for
the good or service considered.

10
 • Suppliers scouting and qualification (i.e. Marketing Intelligence).
The supply market is explored in order to be up-to-date in terms of
technological trends and potential new suppliers. Also, competitors supply
portfolio (i.e. what they buy and from whom) is constantly monitored. This
activity is carried on participating to industry fairs, browsing the Internet,
reading technical magazines, meeting (even informally) companies and
professionals. Suppliers are then evaluated on the basis of several multi-
dimensional parameters (such as service level, reliability, financial solidity,
innovation degree, vocation for partnership and so on). Selected suppliers
are then qualified through a complex process of inspection and evaluation:
this is especially true within sectors requiring rigid legal constraints.
• Supply portfolio management. The main high-level choice regarding
the suppliers management is the type of relationship, that is to say whether
a partnership or a competitive supply market is preferable. More generally
it is required to define the number of suppliers for each product or service,
the number of activities delegated and the type of resources passed (such as
skills, capital assets, etc.) in order to improve supply performances. There
are therefore major issues in terms of supply portfolio rationalization.
• Strategic evaluation. Partner suppliers are then timely evaluated with
a specific focus onto the results of the relation. Exactly like the scouting
activity, several criteria are in place, with the objective to identify rapidly
any incurring gap. This phase is also known as vendor rating and can lead
to review or correct previous choices.

4.2.2. Sourcing

The sourcing process aims at selecting suppliers according to specific needs

of the company once they emerge. The first task consists in defining specifi-
cations of needed goods or services, the Purchasing Department might then
perform scouting and qualification of suppliers in case the supply base is not
updated, a Request for Quotation is then placed to pre-selected suppliers
and finally negotiation and the final selection of the supplier are performed.
The sourcing process ends with the contract agreement.

• Specifications definition. Whenever a need arises from a person

or a unit within the organization, it has to be translated in detailed spe-
cifications representing technical characteristics, quantity, delivery time,
etc. of the purchased object. As a consequence, during this phase, a strong
interaction between the purchasing department and other departments
is required. This is also the reason why purchasing people have to be
technically prepared in order to dialogue both with internal customers and
suppliers.
• Scouting. Once the specifications are clear, the purchasing department
would contact qualified suppliers of that specific product or service, if any.
Otherwise, if no supplier is able to meet the requirements, scouting and
qualifications restart. In some cases, the buying firm has not a sufficient
knowledge or expertise to specify the product characteristics: it therefore
specifies only functional requirements, delegating to the supplier a precise
proposal.
• Request for quote (RfQ). Once supplier/s are selected the product or
service specifications are communicated and the buying firm requires an
offer, containing technical details, quantities, delivery times and methods
and prices.
• Negotiation and selection. There are different ways to let suppliers
compete or to obtain better conditions from one of them, but this is not
our focus. Still, the buying firm had to be careful in deciding what the
priorities are, since the price is not always the main decision driver. Once
the supplier is chosen a contract can be prepared. It generally includes
price, specifications, delivery conditions, terms of payment, penal clauses,
etc. The sourcing process ends with the contract signature.

11
 4.2.3. Supply

Once the agreement between customer and supplier has been reached, the
supply process might start, meaning the customer places order/orders to the
supplier according to the agreement, goods or services are then delivered
by the supplier and controlled by the customer, invoicing and payment takes
place and finally the customer usually evaluates supplier’s performance.
The supply process might be repeated several times within the contract
agreement (e.g. blanket orders) or might be performed only once (e.g.
capital investments) according to the specific purchase.
While the sourcing process is similar for any purchase category, supply
process activities and related tools differ according to two completely
different purchase categories:

• Production-driven purchasing: the supply process is triggered by re-

quirements of the core business operations planning satisfying customer’s
market demand (e.g. raw materials, product components);
• Non production-driven purchasing: the supply process is triggered
by requirements of internal users within the customer organization not
necessarily driven by operations planning (e.g. office supplies, information
technology).

Given the distinction between blanket and una-tantum agreements and pro-
duction-driven and non production-driver purchases, the recurring activities
during the supply process are the following.

• Order and expediting. The purchase order is the official document

that commits the customer to buy and gives the input for production or
expediting (in case of make-to-stock production plan). In case of single
transactions (e.g. capital assets purchase) contract and order are the same
thing. On the contrary, when supply relationships are solid and repetitive,
the Requests for Purchase can be directly uploaded to the supplier’s
information system, overcoming low value added activities. Expediting
consists in tracking the order and stress the supplier, if needed.
• Shipping and receiving. Delivered goods have to be downloaded
and recorded. Then the quality control (usually on a sample) takes place.
Delivery time, quantity and conformity are registered. More and more this
activity is performed by Production or Planning and Control department,
even if the responsibility can remain in charge of Purchasing.
• Payment. Once the delivery is ended, the supplier releases the invoice
and the payment cycle starts, according to contractual terms.
• Operations evaluation. Any data regarding the supply is used to
assess the supplier evaluation and feed the vendor rating system at the
strategic level.

Figure 10. The purchasing process

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4.3. Outsourcing

How to decide whether or not is the case to outsource any activity is not the
scope of this document (see FIRST guidelines: Outsourcing). However, since
outsourcing decisions are the logical antecedents of supply network confi-
guration decisions, Figure 11 summarizes the critical aspects a firm should
take into consideration when the outsourcing decision takes place.

• Descriptive complexity (external) of the components / parts limits

the outsourcing convenience by the potential customer.
• The component specificity limits the real availability of a supply
market as the potential suppliers are not in favour of “ad hoc” investments
to design and produce specific components.
• Uncertainty of processes and components reduce the convenience for
the potential supplier.

The reader has to note that the three previous drivers are useful to de-
termine which kind of market exists for a specific component. So, no choice
is up to the firm. It is only later on, when you established that a colla-
borative market could be the case, that a company could decide if it is the
case to outsource, considering competence, cost and capital drivers. Figure
12 in turn, summarizes pros and cons of each existing market condition.

Low Descriptive complexity High

Low Component specificity High

Low Uncertainty High

Vertical
Collaborative integration
Competitive market
market

Impact of:
- Internet and TLC
- Flexible technologies
Figure 11. Existing market

Competitive market Collaborative market Vertical integration

Pros Cons Pros Cons Pros Cons
Low Low Benefits/risks High High control Low flexibility
switching differentiation sharing switching
costs costs
High Low control Better Spill-over High High
flexibility performances risk differentiation investments
Access to Loss of Medium-high Risk of Economies of Defocalization
innovation competence control choosing scope
the wrong
supplier
Low costs Supply base
reduction
Focus on Secure
core- market for
competence the supplier
(and low
uncertainty)
Figure 12. Pros and Cons

13
 4.4. Collaborative SCM

In the previous section we introduced the notion of collaborative market.

In this field firms establish the so called partnership between customer and
supplier. This kind of relationships require the interaction among several
organizational functions or department, according to Figure 13. Within a
partnership the relation with supplier is no more conflicting and does not
only require negotiation skills. Coherently, the purchasing department gains
new relevance and the buyer changes his role as well, becoming a “process
owner” rather than a commercial employee. Nevertheless partnerships do
not eliminate negotiations: the scope is the fair risk and benefit sharing,
constantly looking for synergies and win-win situations.

BOW-TIE DIAMOND
Market Partnership

NPD NPD
NPD NPD

Production Production
Production Production
Sales Purchasing
Sales Purchasing

Logistics Logistics Logistics Logistics

Supplier Client Supplier Client

Figure 13. Partnership management

Since partnerships can generate benefit for firms but carry on even some
risks, there are tools and solutions aimed at keeping the risk low:

• Framework agreement: medium-long term contract for a durable

supply relationship. The customer reserves a certain amount of production
capacity and the supplier is covered for specific investments.
• Performance monitoring: in order to anticipate any problem. This
activity should be aimed at the actual improvement rather than at taking
advantage of fines or contractual clauses. Moreover, performance measures
have to be clearly stated, in order to align supplier efforts to customer
objectives.
• Dedicated investments: if one or both companies invest on a specific
relation this represent a warranty of commitment.
• Knowledge sharing: this is a particular form of dedicated investment.
Actually, knowledge sharing is the true element that differentiates the
partnership from a pure market relation.
• Transparency: this is one of the most effective levers. If the supplier
reveals its cost structure, the client is protected by too high prices. The
supplier can in turn ask for the repayment of his dedicated investments.
• Reputation: an opportunistic behaviour of a partner can be profitable
in the short term, but can also exclude future collaborations.

14
If a firm establishes that it is the case to collaborate with suppliers there
are still some alternatives. As Figure 14 represents, there are two type of
integration:

• Technological collaboration (Co-design). Customer and supplier

collaborate in designing and developing new products or processes. There
are different types of co-design according to different aims (e.g. time,
cost, quality) and there are some pre-requisites too. First of all, project
management skills are needed, in order to be able to interact. Secondly,
firms capabilities should be complementary, in order to reach results
otherwise difficult to obtain. At the end, a certain degree of trust is needed,
since contractual protection mechanisms are not always sufficient.
• Operational collaboration. Customer and supplier jointly coordinate
demand forecasting, material requirement planning, order management,
production, expediting, delivery, quality control, invoicing, payment or
a part of these activities. There are different types of operational col-
laboration, according to different levels of information sharing (e.g. visibility
or integration). There are also different tools to put in place in order to
activate information flows, such as: telephone and fax, proprietary ERP,
EDI, web EDI, extranet and so on.

Note: synergies deriving from the simultaneous application of technological

and operational collaboration are not excluded. For instance, JIT very often
requires the development of specific production platforms before the actual
integration of the production and logistic cycle starts.

Technological
integration
Codesig Partnershi
• New
development
• Time-to-market
reduction
• Innovation costs Marke “JIT”
reduction
Operational
integration
• Order cycle, logistic,
programming
• Efficiency, speed and
operational flexibility (mix)

Figure 14. Operational and Technological integration

According to the type of product that is the object of the transaction, different
sourcing strategies can be chosen. In particular, two drivers lead to decide
which strategy is most appropriate (see Figure 15):

• Supply market complexity. It consider whether or not there are

obstacles for purchasing a specific product or component. This dimension
is obviously linked to those listed previously: descriptive complexity,
specificity and uncertainty. Indeed, for certain categories a competitive
market is not the case: still, difficulties in supply could be in place. Possible
indicators of the supply market complexity for a given good are: market
concentration (number and dimension of suppliers), bargaining power of
suppliers, constraints in production capacity.
• Strategic importance. It measures the contribution of a purchased
good to the firm competitive performances and allows to distinguish
between purchases that are strategic and others that, despite necessary,
do not add competitive advantage. Possible indicators of the strategic
importance of a good are: cost impact on the firm product, contribution to
the overall product quality, capability to offer competitive advantage (for
instance, in terms of differentiation from competitors).

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 Bottlenecks Strategic
ƒ Partnership or ƒ Partnership
vertical ƒ Long-term
integration relationships
ƒ Sole sourcing ƒ Single/Dual
sourcing

Supply market Non critical Levers

ƒ Competitive ƒ Partnership
market ƒ Bargaining
complexity

ƒ Spot transaction power

ƒ Multiple sourcing ƒ Dual/Parallel
sourcing

Strategic importance of
the component

Figure 15. Krajic matriz

As Kraljic’s matrix suggests, there are different sourcing policies available to

manage the supply network, which are characterized as follows.

• Multiple sourcing. The customer constantly refers to a competitive

market and uses spot transactions, not to depend on a single supplier.
Suppliers are generally selected on price basis and switching costs are
low (i.e. different suppliers produce more or less the same product). This
kind of supply network adapts to standard products that are easy to find
on the market. In general, it is also easier to access innovation. The main
weakness is the impossibility to obtain a high level of customization or
benefit for economies of scale, since the material requirement is divided
among several suppliers.
• Single sourcing. The customer buys a certain product or component
from a unique supplier. This is sometime a mandatory choice: the supplier
could own a proprietary technology or be a monopolist or, again, the
customer could ask for dedicated investments. In other cases the customer
is interested in customization, flexibility, high exchanged volumes, specific
skills and so on. There is however a danger of “lateral monopoly”, since the
customer can become hostage of his supplier.
• Dual sourcing. It is a variant of single sourcing: the customer maintains
a single supplier for the majority of supply of a certain good and a backup
supplier for the remaining part. In this way, there is a certain degree of
competition between the two suppliers and the customer is protected by
accidents and opportunistic behaviours.
• Parallel sourcing. It is characterized by a series of single-sourcing re-
lationships in order to satisfy the requirement of a component for a family
of end products. In other words, the customer renounces to aggregate
the need across different product families, keeping several suppliers
that realize more or less the same product. In order to activate parallel
sourcing, a firm should have a sufficiently wide product range (where
product families share similar products or activities). Moreover, a single
family requirement for a component has to be as high as to justify the
activation of a dedicated supplier. The objective of parallel sourcing is to
improve the trade-off between risk and efficiency of the supply: like in
single sourcing, the customer has the possibility to build long term and
collaborative relationship; while, like in multiple sourcing, he maintain the
possibility to substitute a supplier with another.

16
 Partners
Institute of Technology for Furniture
and Related Industry
C\ Benjamín Franklin, 13. Parque Tecnológico.
Apdo. nº 50 - 46980 Paterna. (Valencia)
Spain
Tel : 00 34 96 136 60 70
Fax : 00 34 96 136 61 85
[email protected]
www.aidima.es

BFM
British Furniture Manufacturers Federation
Wycombe House
9 Amersham Hill
High Wycombe
Bucks HP13 6NR
Great Britain
Tel : 00 44 1494 523021,
Fax : 00 44 1494 474270
[email protected]
www.bfm.org.uk

EFBWW
European Federation of Building & Wood Workers
Rue Royale 45/3
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Tel : 00 32 2 2271040
Fax : 00 32 2 2198228
[email protected]
www.efbww.org

EIAS
European Industry Associations Services
Rue de la Loi 26
1040 Brussels
Belgium
Tel : 00 32 2 2181889
Fax : 00 32 2 2192701
www.eiasnet.com

IFA
French Furniture Manufacturers Federation
28 bis avenue Daumesnil
75012 Paris
France
Tel : 00 33 1 44 68 18 00
Fax : 00 33 1 44 74 37 55
[email protected]
www.mobilier.com

MIP
Piazza Leonardo Da Vinci 32
20133 Milan
Italy
Tel : 00 39 0223992804
Fax : 00 39 0223992720
[email protected]
www.polimi.it

UEA
European Furniture Manufacturers Federation
Rue de la Loi 26
1040 Brussels
Belgium
Tel : 00 32 2 2181889
Fax : 00 32 2 2192701
[email protected]
www.ueanet.com
FURNITURE INDUSTRY IN RESTRUCTURING : SYSTEMS & TOOLS

Editeur responsable

Wetstraat 26 rue de la Loi

B-1040 Brussels
Tel. 003222181889
Fax 003222192701
[email protected]
www.ueanet.com

Co-funded by the EUROPEAN UNION

European Social Fund
Article 6 Innovative measures