Buyer–supplier collaboration during emerging technology development

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to understand how buyers-suppliers collaborate during the development of emerging technologies. Using the relational view, the paper examines a high technology aerospace firm as it develops additive manufacturing technology with two suppliers. It is found that the radical novelty and high degree of technological uncertainty associated with emerging technologies lead to a small pool of capable suppliers, limited machine capacity and constrained raw material supply. Companies, therefore, turn to University Technology Centres (UTCs) to incubate new ideas and test prototypes before involving suppliers in development efforts. Companies also seek out government-funded catapult centres where buyers, suppliers and customers are co-located in a single facility, allowing them to interact and share knowledge on a regular basis. The study contributes to the relational view by identifying that regular interaction within collaborative relationships does not necessarily lead to knowledge spill-overs between buyers and suppliers during the development of emerging technologies. Instead, the study finds that knowledge exchange is facilitated when suppliers have the freedom to use intellectual property in non-competing industries and have guarantees of future business that allow them to invest in machine capacity and raw material supply.

Keywords:

• Additive manufacturing
• 3D printing
• buyer–supplier collaboration
• supplier involvement in new product development
• relational view

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hamid Moradlou

Dr. Hamid Moradlou is a Lecturer in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield University, School of Management. He has earned his BEng degree from University of Bath in Mechanical Engineering with Manufacturing Management followed by an MSc in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering and Management at Loughborough University. He also obtained his PhD in Supply Chain Management which was funded by the Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University. His research interests mainly focuses on investigating the offshoring and re-shoring phenomenon in developed countries and the impacts of new generation of technologies, industry 4.0, on manufacturing location decision.

Sam Roscoe

Dr. Sam Roscoe is a Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at the University of Sussex Business School. Sam has published several peer-reviewed articles, for example, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM) and International Journal of Production Research (IJPR). Sam received funding from the EPSRC to investigate how 3D printing in reconfiguring pharmaceutical supply chains; moving production closer to patients and consumers. Sam’s research interests are on how emerging technologies (3D printing, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence) are reconfiguring global supply chains. He is the research leader for the Supply Chain 4.0 Hub at the University of Sussex Business School.

Abhijeet Ghadge

Dr. Abhijeet Ghadge is a Senior lecturer in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK. He holds a PhD in Operations and Supply Chain Management from Loughborough University, UK, and MTech in Industrial Engineering and Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, India. Dr Ghadge has published several peer-reviewed articles in the operations, logistics and supply chain focussed journals. He follows a practice-driven approach to problems across the broad domains of supply chain risk, sustainability and Industry 4.0; and holds over 13 years of industrial, academic and consulting experience.