| dc.description.abstract | Research shows that by year 2050, the world population will increase towards nine billion people and the biggest challenge will be to feed the ever-growing population. In addition, development of wealth in Norway has contributed to larger customer demands in variety, quality, availability and safety of products sold. Therefore, making the food supply chain sustainable has gained a larger focus the last years. Collaboration between the supply chain actors is necessary, both to achieve sustainability and product availability. Daily fresh bread is found to be an important product to the Norwegian population. Research shows that around 90 percent of the Norwegian population eat bread for breakfast, emphasising the importance to pay attention to the changing demands of bread.
The objective of the master s thesis is to analyse the replenishment of daily fresh bread. The analysation will be visualised by developing a Control Model, providing a method for organising and controlling the logistics of the collaboration. The following research questions (RQ) are answered to provide the groundwork needed to reach the objective:
RQ 1: What are the capabilities, challenges and restrictions of a collaboration between the supplier and retailer in a food supply chain?
RQ 2: What planning decisions and control principles are of relevance in the replenishment of daily fresh bread?
The research design of the master s thesis is a literature study of relevant research combined with a case study of four grocery stores and representatives from both the supplier and wholesaler. The aim of the literature study is to answer the research questions. While the development of the Control Model is performed as an analysation of the case study, and a discussion of the findings towards the literature study.
The collaboration is affected by many factors. The capabilities of the collaboration are enabled by the collaboration model the actors have implemented. The restrictions are established by the contract of the collaboration. The challenges of collaboration are found to be time delays, distorted information and poor visibility, resulting in information gaps, mistrust and other challenges for the relationship.
The planning decisions belonging to the activities of the replenishment process are extracted from the literature study. In addition, control principles are elaborated, aiming at optimising the supply chain costs. The planning decisions and control principles are attempted combined, where the result is a planning and control framework, showing the existing planning decisions and signal triggers of the collaboration and replenishment.
The result of the master s thesis is a TO-BE Control Model, showing the product and information flow between the grocery stores, wholesaler and supplier. It gives an indication of how the collaboration can be controlled by presenting the suitable control principles to each process. It provides a structured and graphical embodiment of the supply chain control and its processes. The Control Model is an overview of the collaboration, and can be used to find improvement areas, being applicable to both the current collaboration and other supply chain relationships regarding replenishment of perishables. | en |
