Study on the cooperative model of electronic printing industry

(a) Design collaborative work:

This form of collaborative work covers all Discrete Manufactured Products and Configured to Order products. This type of product has a long product life cycle. All of these products have a common feature, that is, they all need to start with the specification documents, such as engineering drawings, graphic diagrams, etc., and these specifications must be shared or modified by both partners. Collaboration of this kind can be simple, sample transport, or it can be complex, requiring collaboration tools to track and manage the workflow.

(II) Marketing/sales cooperative work:

This refers to collaborative work with channel partners such as resellers and distributors, focusing on the sharing of information between each other, and the sharing of processes such as order/price/brand management, as well as providing promised information. This type of collaborative work involves the creation of a common brand of virtual exhibition space, so that the various pathways from manufacturer to retailer can work together to support end-consumer demand for products or services.

(3) Purchasing collaborative operations:

This is a collaborative operation in which several buyers combine large quantities to purchase certain products or services in order to reduce procurement costs. Purchasing collaborative work can be a public marketplace for electronic transactions, or it can be an individual company that combines all the needs of its various business units for finished products and raw materials and purchases them in unison. In contrast, suppliers can also combine the power of each other to provide products or services, so that buyers can purchase large quantities at once, without having to place orders with several suppliers at the same time.

(d) Planning/forecast collaborative operations:

The driving force behind this type of collaborative work is mainly the “Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR)” model promoted by VICS (The Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Standards). The CPFR model has developed nine major The steps help companies and companies (especially from suppliers to retailers) cooperate in planning, forecasting and replenishment. From another point of view, CPFR is a value chain partner reconciliation program to reduce the business process of differences between suppliers, thus making the supply chain more demand-oriented. CPFR's Collaboration concept requires information technology to build, share, and adjust On-Line forecasts and plans. Collaboration in the supply chain has always been regarded as a major business process, and CPFR is a way to achieve a win-win situation for each other's trading partners. That is, customer satisfaction, cost, and revenue can be optimized at the same time. The mechanism of success. The main objective of CPFR is to increase the accuracy of demand forecasting and replenishment planning to reduce inventory in the supply chain and enable the right product to obtain a higher level of service in the right place. Only when companies can cooperate and share knowledge with each other through a series of common processes can this goal be implemented.

There are three forms of the current most common collaborative job mode, as shown in Table 2-1:

Table 2-1 Comparison of Printing Industry Collaboration Modes

Source: Modified from Xiao Ruilin (2002), "Cooperative Commerce Brings New Horizons for B2B Cooperation", Management Journal No. 332.

(1) Transactional cooperative operation mode:

The first is the most common type of "Exchange Collaboration Model". For example, e-marketplace, online auction, and e-procurement are transaction-based collaborative work models. In this model, the main cooperation method of enterprises is to exchange resources. For example, manufacturers must purchase raw materials from suppliers for production. In order to obtain more economical transactions, companies often use auctions to conduct online bidding and exchange the least amount of money for the best raw materials. The current electronic market (vertical or horizontal) belongs to this category. Transactional collaborative work.

This type of transaction-based collaborative work mode is a cooperative principle of “everything you need and part ways” (unless there is a specific trading relationship), so it can also be called Pooling Collaboration. However, the biggest disadvantage of this kind of collaborative operation mode is that it is impossible to judge the bad members in the cooperative vendors. In particular, all transactions in the electronic market are virtual and it is difficult for them to identify each other's true identity. In case there is any vendor or customer who does not pay for the purchase and the customer is not delivered after the sale, the trust of such a collaborative operation model will be greatly reduced. Once this situation cannot be effectively controlled, such an e-commerce cooperation model will quickly collapse and collapse. (Xiao Ruilin, 2002)

(B) Process-based collaborative operation mode:

The second model is Process Collaboration, which is generally referred to as supply chain management (SCM: Supply Chain Management). This type of collaborative operation involves the inclusion of suppliers in the supply chain. In general, to provide a service or product, an enterprise usually needs to go through the main processes of design, production, marketing, delivery, and maintenance services. When an enterprise only focuses on a certain number of core processes and outsources other processes to suppliers, the company enters a process-based collaborative operation, or a sequential collaboration operation. The characteristic of this collaborative operation mode is the pursuit of flexibility. The integration of resources, and through information technology, enables each vendor to contribute its best service.

The most worrying aspect of this collaborative operating model is the ability of the companies in the supply chain to provide services. If any one company has a problem, the entire supply chain may stop. And the greater risk is whether the suppliers before and after the supply chain can establish mutual trust and share information to achieve the closest integration mechanism. Often in the supply chain, information is the company's most valuable secret (such as factory inventory information). In addition to relying on the capabilities of the various vendors, the sharing of this information lies in how to deal with the complex political issues of various suppliers in the supply chain. Because of this type of collaborative operation, its internal loops are interconnected. Any problem in one loop can cause the entire supply chain to stop. (Xiao Ruilin, 2002)

(III) Interactive collaborative operation mode:

The third model is called interactive operation (Reciprocal Collaboration). This collaborative operation model mainly uses information systems to manage cross-border product development. This type of interactive collaborative operation is most common in more complex product development and design. Production lines or R&D lines, such as automotive, aerospace engines, and integrated circuit manufacturing. Because of the high complexity of the production of the product itself and the tight time-to-market, companies must use this information system to connect engineers located in various countries so that they can simultaneously design products across regions and across time domains. (Xiao Ruilin, 2002)

The so-called collaborative work is not just a matter of importing software into cooperative companies. What is involved is which type of collaborative business model (such as transactional, process or interactive) you want to choose. Regardless of the introduction of any collaborative work model, managers need to realize that the integration between companies is not a quandary, especially when such collaborative work is moved to “computer monitors”. First and foremost is the issue of "risk management" in virtual communities.

The creation of collaborative operations among enterprises has created a new realm of B2B cooperation, but managers need to pay attention to three key points in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of importing inter-enterprise information systems in the past:

(1) There are at least three modes of collaborative operations among enterprises. The most suitable mode is to select the most appropriate type of synergy for the nature of the company's operations. But no matter which collaborative mode of operation is chosen, managers must realize that collaboration among enterprises is a process of establishing a “virtual community”.

(2) After the establishment of the community, it is the beginning of the success or failure of the cooperation. The manager needs to plan ahead, prevent the fuse factor that may cause collaboration failure, and do a good job of risk management.

(3) When the enterprise is fully virtualized, it is necessary to establish mutual trust, otherwise the virtual collaborative work cooperation will eventually become an illusion. (Xiao Ruilin, 2002)

The realization of collaborative work must be technically based on the integration of business and business (B2Bi, Business to Business Integration). In terms of the integration stage of enterprise e-business, the company has gone from simple website construction to the direction of integrating various applications. The first is to establish consistent electronic standards for each operating department within the company, and then from within the company to expand between enterprises and enterprises, so the demand for this phase mainly comes from application systems and business process integration. Finally, when companies enter the service-oriented integration phase, all integration of back-end application software through various front-end devices becomes mainstream. Therefore, the integration of cross-platform and data will be an indispensable technology for enterprises.

As companies form collaborative ventures with their trading partners to form so-called “virtual extension companies” and establish an unbreakable “value chain”, they can compete with competitors in the market and win successfully. In the meantime, although in the virtual team on the Internet, each company must not only focus on its own core competition, but also integrate various different designs, production, distribution, logistics and other functions, which are difficult and complex. It is not hard to imagine. Based on the above, this study will initially describe and outline the prototype of cooperative operation mode of printing industry operation, and further discuss the feasibility and benefits of co-integration in the printing industry. (Author: Zhang Guangsen, Chen Changlang)