Supply chain collaboration, easy or difficult? And can it really work? In theory yes, but in reality? Maybe not. While supply chain collaboration has been hailed by many as the way to improve supply chain performance, more often than not supply chain partnerships fails miserably, because the required prerequisites are not met by the companies involved. Obviously, collaborations that fail can be an unexpected major supply chain risk, or perhaps it should have been foreseen? In their 2006 article Realities of supply chain collaboration, R. Kampstra, J. Ashayeri, & J. Gattorna aim to investigate the gap between the interests in supply chain collaboration and the relatively few recorded cases of successful applications. In the end they develop a framework for what it takes to make collaboration work in supply chains.

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