Assessing Factors That Affect The Local Fruits Supply Chain And Fruits Juice Processing Industries, (The Case Of Three Fruit Juice Processing Companies)
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Date
2019-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Manufacturing industries can achieve their competitive advantage only if they get continuous supply of raw material and operate with better capacity utilization. Supply chain management is one of the strategic factors for not only ensuring sustainable supply but also increasing the organizational efficiency and it is a means for achieving the expected objectives. The objective of SCM is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage (Handfield, Monczka, Giuinipero& Patterson, 2009).Supply chain is considered as critical element for firm’s long term success in terms of boasting competitiveness, increasing profitability and customer satisfaction.
The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that affect the local fruits supply chain and fruits processing industries taking the cases of the three mango fruit juice processors (Great Abyssinia plc, Petram PLC and Afran Global PLC). In this study the researcher focused on organizational performance, supply chain strategy and supply chain performance of these companies. In designing these measures due emphasis is given to relate with efficiency, capacity utilization, reliability, responsiveness, flexibility, cost and asset management. In the study the researcher used descriptive research design where both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis are applied. In the findings a number of factors are identified as a cause and most of the factors can be managed by implementing efficient supply chain management system.
The findings of the study show that the supply chain management practice of the fruits juice processors are very weak. It is also investigated that agricultural production of fruits and industry productivity of fruits juice are at a very low level. Despite the huge agricultural potential available in the country, the industry is highly dependent on semi processed imported input. Processing companies are operating at low level of capacity utilization; there is high supply driven market and huge gap between demand and supply of locally processed fruits juices.
Hence, the sector needs special attention where every stakeholder including government and processing companies has to take the recommendations forwarded in to consideration to improve the sector competitiveness.
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Keywords
Supply Chain Management, competitive advantage, capacity utilization