查看文章

World-class companies compete aggressively at the global market to sustain their survival and to bring their organization to the front rank. The transformation to this class is one of the more remarkable changes in recent years. Due to this astonishing transformation, manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to improve productivity and quality while reducing costs (Porter, 1990). Global competitiveness is the existence of competition among different organizations that serve global customers (WEF, 2016). The nature of competition is dynamic and competition has shifted more and more to the making and accommodation of knowledge (Dentoni, 1999; Sölvell, 2015). It is well known in today’s scenario that delivery time, cost, quality, flexibility and innovativeness are indicators for firm’s capability and competitiveness whether it is placed to world-class economy or at the foot of low-income organizations (Kumar, R; Kumar, V, 2012).

Feasibility study of previous projects indicated that among the above stated factors of competitiveness, cost plays the predominant role for the decision of firms’ managers, practitioners and designing engineers on the continuity of a system under investigation. But Nicholas argued that in any manufacturing company, about 60 to 70% of the final cost of manufactured items is from purchased materials, components and services (Nicholas, 2005). Due to this fact, all organizations rely on suppliers for inputs. Having well-networked supply chain system leads firms to minimizing of majority of costs of the output via agile and safe delivery, reducing number of suppliers, empowering potential suppliers, etc. However, usually the …