The alignment of the product strategy with the supply chain process is a key for the firm to adopt a strategic behavior enabling competitive value creation over time. Collaborative efforts to coordinate involved activity units are necessary for this strategic alignment. But it is often mentioned that there are difficulties to implement such collaborative efforts. Those difficulties come from organizational barriers and uncertainties related to potential performances by the alignment of the product strategy with the process. In this study we focus on how to reduce the uncertainties in the supply chain process based on actual successful collaboration cases. The cases are drawn from the digital still camera market involving high uncertainties, especially the demand uncertainty. We will suggest that the collaborative efforts should be implemented systematically under a normative perspective that contributes to the reduction of the uncertainties in order to secure the competitive alignment over time.

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This paper introduces a “new Just-In-Time system” named “New JIT” that contributes to the evolution of Japanese automobile manufacturing strategy. The authors believe that the key to successful global manufacturing is “Strategic Cooperative Creation Team” activities between the manufacturer and affiliated/non-affiliated suppliers employing “Strategic Stratified Task Team Model” (SSTTM). To illustrate this, the author describes typical two case studies of how this model improved the bottleneck problems of worldwide automobile manufactures for realizing simultaneous QCD fulfilment.

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Today’s ever-changing business environment is often described to be highly competitive, dynamic and complex. Customers are demanding more variability, better quality, higher reliability and faster delivery. Organizations are being faced with more uncertainties from its task environment than before. In order to respond to the uncertainties, organizations are internalizing fewer resources and capabilities, while increasing their integration with partners in the supply chain. Drawing on the resource-dependence theory, this study aims to examine the impact of environmental uncertainty on supply chain integration initiatives. Environmental uncertainty is considered in terms of three types, namely, supply uncertainty, demand or customer uncertainty, and technology uncertainty, based on its sources. Supply chain integration is comprised of internal integration, customer integration, and supplier integration. Based on the empirical study with 108 Japanese manufacturing firms, this study makes significant contributions to the knowledge base and provides theoretical and practical implications.

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