Bitte wählen Sie ihr Lieferland und ihre Kundengruppe
Cross-functional improvement programs in a supply chain are challenging because the different organizational units may have divergent objectives and priorities concerning the improvement needs. This is at least partly because of the fact that the participants have narrow functional points of view and a poor understanding of the overall performance factors of the whole supply chain. The supply chain improvement program should start with improving the participants' understanding of the whole process and interrelationships within it. It is also important to achieve a widespread consensus on the most important improvement needs. Furthermore, employees of different functions need to improve their skills in communication and cooperation with other functions. In order to succeed, this organizational learning should exploit different parties' experience and be organization wide, covering the whole supply chain. The learning should also offer personal experiences and be interactive between different functions. In this paper the authors demonstrate with a specific case the use of role game as a tool to increase process understanding and communication skills in a kick-off workshop of a supply chain improvement program.