Prioritisation of Internal and External Barriers for Supply-Chain Implementation in Manufacturing Companies: A Malaysian Perspective

Manufacturing companies as well as service providers often encounter barriers in successful implementation of supply-chain management (SCM) principles and practices. This research, through extensive literature review, has identified the main barriers of SCM implementation for Malaysian manufacturing companies. Having identified the list of barriers, the items in the list are prioritised by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Ten respondents who have a wide range of experiences in dealing with SCM have provided the necessary inputs in the prioritisation exercise. The individual AHP pair-wise comparison matrices are aggregated and Superdecision software has been used to compute the priorities. From the generated ranks, the most critical barriers can easily be identified. The onus on the Malaysian manufacturing companies is to take note of the present research findings and take appropriate measures so that the full benefits of SCM can be reaped. Though the findings are valid in the Malaysian context, judgements from people from other countries can be taken and a comparison of the results can be made.