ABSTRACT
Overview Competitive organizations deploy information technology and other systems to coordinate, manage, and improve the diverse process workflows within their supply chain. However, even in workflow environments that rely heavily on information technology (IT), interpersonal and interfunctional communication is critical in creating and maintaining efficient workflows. In contrast, noncompetitive supply chains are characterized by functional silos. ese silos inhibit the flow of material and information through their system. e reason for this situation is that in process workflows having functional silos, there are numerous handoffs at functional interfaces between silos, which contributes to process breakdowns. A system structured as a series of functional silos pushes materials or information from one functional silo to another without regard to the status of downstream operations. It is also characterized by little or no feedback to upstream operations regarding the status of downstream resources. e flow of materials or information is also inhibited, at interfunctional interfaces, if the functions within each silo have contradictory goals
and objectives. Unfortunately, this is usually the situation in large organizations. e result is suboptimization of process workflows across the functional silos. Typical operational characteristics of functional silos are long order-to-delivery cycles and higher per unit transaction costs. ese concepts are qualitatively shown in Figure 11.1.
