انتخاب تامین کننده یا همکاری و مشارکت؟ عوامل تعیین کننده ی بهبود عملکرد در هنگام برون سپاری تولید

An empirical study was designed to determine factors of performance improvement when outsourcing manufacturing. Findings from a survey of 136 manufacturing plants in Sweden show that most of them achieve their outsourcing motives, but not without trade-offs. Factors of performance improvements such as economies of scale or operations in low-cost countries can improve one performance dimension, such as product cost, yet negatively impact volume flexibility, speed or product innovation. The results show part characteristics and supplier operating capabilities are more important than supplier relationship strategies when outsourcing manufacturing, meaning that supplier selection trumps supplier collaboration in the make-or-buy decision.

The practice of outsourcing continues to challenge managers. Although the theoretical foundations for outsourcing manufacturing are firmly rooted in the literature, it seems to be difficult for many practitioners to fully take advantage of this practice in reality. There are several examples of outsourcing initiatives that have failed to achieve a company's performance objectives. A recent case in point is Chrysler's lawsuit against Accenture for not delivering the promised savings when obtaining new suppliers in low-cost countries (Sherefkin and Barkholz, 2008). The purpose of this study is to improve the make-or-buy decision process for managers by providing empirical evidence on what factors really matter in attaining various kinds of performance objectives. The study fills a gap in the purchasing and supply management literature by involving several make-or-buy decision factors and simultaneously assessing their performance improvement impact. As will be shown, most conceptual make-or-buy frameworks involve many factors, while previous empirical studies have handled each of these factors only in isolation.

This research meets a need for more comprehensive empirical studies on outsourcing manufacturing. By considering several factors, the present study clarifies their relative importance as well as their performance impacts. The first main conclusion that follows from this study is that factors related to supplier selection have a stronger outsourcing performance impact than those related to supplier collaboration. Part characteristics and supplier operating capabilities are in particular shown to predict outsourcing performance, while supplier relationship strategies do not. From a theoretical point of view, this has important implications for future outsourcing research. Since rather few of the measured factors are able to predict outsourcing performance and since they also explain a relatively low share of the variation in some of the dependent variables, there is ample opportunity for theory development in this respect. Links between factors in current frameworks must be clarified, but more importantly other kinds of factors that better explain outsourcing performance must be added. While the current outsourcing frameworks that underlie the present study have a focus on content-related factors (why outsource? what? and to whom?), it might be necessary to add factors concerned with the process of outsourcing, to study the make-or-buy decision in organisational context (Moses and Åhlström, 2008). Examples are the role and involvement of the purchasing department within the buying organisation, the skills of buyers and managers, the proficiency and formalization of the make-or-buy decision process, as well as the usage of techniques such as total cost of ownership. Current make-or-buy frameworks are lacking in these factors, while current research into the future role of purchasing and supply management clearly has envisaged a need for them (Cousins and Spekman, 2003).