Positioning the Role of Collaborative Planning in Grocery Supply Chains

Supply chain integration is to a large extent still only a promise, despite considerable efforts by organizations and their customers and suppliers. Lack of visibility across the supply chain together with adversarial relationships between members are significant barriers to supply chain integration. Collaborative planning, originating from the consumer packaged goods industry, is an approach that promises to overcome these barriers, and through join planning and development of a clearer understanding of the dynamics of the supply chain replenishment process to deliver some of the promised benefits of supply chain integration. To help position the concept of collaborative planning, various collaborative initiatives such as vendor‐managed inventory (VMI) and continuous replenishment (CR) and collaborative planning (CP) are reviewed. The evolution and the value of various collaborative planning initiatives are presented as well as how these initiatives are positioned within the overarching concept of supply chain management. Finally, a future research agenda is suggested.