Electronic commerce and manufacturing supply chain integration and management: Approaches to improve government policies

This dissertation analyzes data collected from a single manufacturing supply chain to understand the barriers to Business-to-Business (B2B) Electronic Commerce (EC) adoption, and how government policy may be designed to overcome these barriers. The hypothesis is that technological barriers are the major factors impeding EC diffusion and adoption in U.S. manufacturing supply chains. To test the hypothesis, the research focuses on a major shipbuilder that was having difficulty implementing an e-Procurement system using electronic data interchange (EDI) with its suppliers. Economic, technological, and information barriers limited EDI adoption by its suppliers, many of whom are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Government and business decision-makers have devised EC supply chain solutions to overcome technological barriers and to a lesser extent information barriers. By identifying the actual barriers to SME EC adoption, decision-makers can devise better methods to overcoming the barriers.; A hybrid research methodology is employed to identify those barriers. It includes a case study approach with an exploratory survey, an explanatory survey and unstructured interviews with suppliers and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). More than two hundred suppliers of the shipbuilder were surveyed. In addition, adoption models are developed for each barrier. The factors of EDI adoption are determined by testing the data gathered from the surveys against those adoption models. The findings show that economic, not technological, barriers are the most important impediments to SME EDI adoption.; Most government policies are designed to overcome technological and information barriers, so the findings suggest government policies should be re-directed to overcome economic barriers. The findings also suggest strategies for OEMs to improve their EC supply chain and integration management (SCIM) projects through improved analysis of their supply chains. The study provides insight into how newer EC technologies, such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), might change the level of technological, economic and information barriers, and how government and business decision-makers should adjust to those developments.