Early supplier involvement

Zsidisin, G.A., and Smith, M.E. Managing Supply Risk with Early Supplier Involvement A Case Study and Research Propositions. Journal of Supply Chain Manoigement, 41(4) 44, November 2005. 

Proactive purchasing groups typically consider the role of early supplier involvement (ESI) as a tool to improve the cost and quality performance of products. A paper by Zsidisin and Smith [92] summarizes the literature... 

Early supplier involvement (ESI) is a technique to transfer responsibility for product innovation to the supplier. This transfer requires a large amount of time on the part of the purchasing firm. This means that the firm must focus on transferring responsibility to those firms that are the most likely to... 

Bidault, F. and C. Butler, Early Supplier Involvement Leveraging Know-how for Better... 

Keywords Concurrent engineering Collaborative engineering Early supplier involvement Collaboralive/open innovation CE system Production system... 

In this chapter, a brief history is sketched of the main developments in CE in the past decades. First, CE is briefly described, including Early Supplier Involvement. Second, Collaborative Engineering is described, followed by Collaborative Innovation. 

Early supplier involvement (ESI) as part of CE and CE has received much attention from researchers and practitioners at the end of the 90s and early 2000s. A literature review by Mclvor and Humphreys [16] revealed that despite the potential benefits of ESI negative impact of various factors might exist, like technology uncertainty, low levels of tmst between the buyer and supplier, poor communication and co-ordination mechanisms. These factors are similar to those mentioned often also in the context of CE and CE. Development and monitoring of collaborative relationships are critical for preventing problems with supplier performance [17]. 

O Neal Ch (1993) Concurrent engineering with early supplier involvement A cross-functional challenge, hit J Purch Mat Manag 29(1) 2-9... 

Mclvor R, Humphreys P (2004) Early supplier involvement in the design process lessons from the electronics industry. Omega 32 179-199... 

Another aspect firms contend with is deciding how involved suppliers should be and to what extent firms should develop their suppliers. Should suppliers be involved in product development and other critical decisions Larger companies with complex material and component requirements are beginning to take a proactive approach with their suppliers. They are finding that buyer and supplier relationships can mitigate new product development costs and risks. Early supplier involvement can produce better designs, decrease production costs, and yield faster idea-design-production-sale timelines. 

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