Identifying Components and Indexes of Interoperability in Supply Chain

Cooperation between companies in the supply chain of industries is inevitable to achieve business goals, but different research studies have shown that most of the joint projects will not be able to work in manufacturing industries. It could have several reasons ranging from the lack of mutual understanding between the partners until ambiguity in the responsibility of partners. There are a range of such issues that inhibits cooperation between two organizations. Organizations should have the ability of cooperation to accomplish joint work. In other words, they should be interoperable. Interoperability is a key factor for successful collaboration between companies and to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. So it is very important for companies to manage their interoperability. They have to recognize the issues, analyze situations, make improvements, and generalize improvement activities. To do so, it seems vital first of all to identify the components and indicators of interoperability which is the goal of this study. In this paper, a model of interoperability including 5 components and 27 indicators has been presented. This model has been confirmed using second-order confirmatory factor analysis with Warp PLS program. The situation of interoperability indexes at automative parts producers located in Qazvin was studied.