Challenges for the integration of European and Chinese vegetable supply chain management

A key element for the food industry to be competitive on global and local markets is the constant improvement of the business processes. The usage of modern information and communication technology (ICT) is an opportunity for the improvement of the supply chain of vegetables and fresh food agribusiness. This paper introduces a reflection on challenges for the integration of European and Chinese Vegetable Supply Chain Management by the usage of internet technologies. INTRODUCTION The rapid pace of technological development in ICT also affects industries outside the ICT sector. Most businesses are users of ICT. Modern information and communication technology also fundamentally shift structure in these user businesses. Supply chain architectures can be redesigned using ICT [1]. The growth of Internet has presented the supply chain with many significant opportunities for cost reduction and service improvement. [2] People believe that the Internet has the great potential to revolutionise the entire supply chain. Beside developments and research in the web technology (e.g. Web 2.0) and mobile technologies (e.g. UMTS, GPS) also developments on product (e.g. RFID) and infrastructure level (e.g. EPC) are playing an important rule for improving the food supply chain [3]. To integrate internet supported European and Chinese vegetable supply chain management the results of an analysis regarding the Challenges for the Integration of European and Chinese in adopting advanced SCM techniques and use of ICT in supporting vegetable supply chain will be presented. This analysis contains existing problems and gaps in agribusiness SCM and adoption of ICT and Internet enabled technologies in Europe and China and will introduce possibilities for compiling solutions regarding these problems. The analysed supply chain functionalities (process oriented tasks, object oriented tasks and technical gaps in ICT and interfaces) which are embedded along the whole supply chain are shown in figure 1: