Supply Chain Integration in Europe: A Status Report

In an effort to understand the status of integration in supply chains in European firms, this paper attempts to identify the significant factors that define supply chain integration, how these factors affect supply chain performance and the extent European firms involve key suppliers and customers in decision-making. Based on a survey with 149 European firms, exploratory factor analysis provides four significant factors from 21 essential indicators of supply chain integration with suppliers and customers including collaboration in supply chain design and operations with key customers, collaboration in supply chain design and operation with key suppliers, relationship quality monitoring, and maturity of relationship with key supply chain partners. Using path analysis with the se factors and performance improvement indicators, collaboration in supply chain design and operations with key suppliers and length of relationship with key supply chain partners were found out to be important factors in supply chain integration that positively affect performance improvement.