VEGNET - Enhancing Agribusiness Supply Chain Management with Internet technologies

Project Summary

• Title: Enhancing Vegetable Supply Chain Management with Internet Technologies (VEGNET)
• Programme Component: Liaise with European IT&C Initiatives and programmes
• Area of Activity: Agriculture, E-commerce and Education
• Duration of the Project: 36 months
• EC Co-financing: 328,000 EUR
• Start Date 8th November 2004

Project Objectives

• To investigate the current situation of vegetable supply chain operations and the adoption of the Internet technologies in support of vegetable supply chain activities in Europe and China.
• To search for ideas, know-how, expertise and experience in SCM, especially, Internet supported SCM, from Europe and Asia and transfer them into China by establishing a knowledge transfer framework, developing a web-based knowledge base and conducting various dissemination activities.
• To increase managers awareness on SCM approaches and tools by introducing concepts of SCM and Internet enabled SCM in Chinese agribusiness and to educate agribusiness managers through the development and use of e-learning systems, workshops and seminars.
• To pilot an Internet based vegetable supply chain management system in a selected Chinese region.
• To test and evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot implementation and reveal the bottlenecks and barriers for the future deployment of Internet enabled SCM in Chinese Agribusiness.
• To establish an effective network of communication and exchange of information between European and Asia ITC expertise and to develop a strong link between European and Chinese organizations for long-term collaborations.
• By working on e-Supply Chain Management for agro-products, to increase mutual understanding of the complexity of transferring European ICTs to Asia - thus improving technology cross-flow and the quality of Euro-Asia partnerships.

Main Activities

• The major activities in the project will include:
• to investigate the situation of vegetable supply chain operations and the adoption of ICTs in Europe and China,
• to review Europe's know-how and best practice in Internet-enabled SCM in Agribusiness,
• to raise awareness and educate Chinese Agribusiness managers with e-learning system and seminars and workshops,
• to establish how the Internet supported SCM can be introduced into Vegetable SCM in China by developing a conceptual knowledge transfer framework and a web-based knowledge base,
• and to pilot and evaluate an internet-based vegetable SCM in a Chinese region with the close cooperation of the local project partner.

Project dissemination, evaluation and management are also main activities within the project lifespan.

List of Partner Organisations

United Kingdom

• Organisation: Luton Business School, University of Bedfordshire (co-ordinator)
• Contact: Dr Yanqing Duan
• Email: yanqing.duan@beds.ac.uk

People's Republic of China

• Organisation: China Agricultural University (CAU)
• Contact: Professor Daoliang Li
• Email: li_daoliang@yahoo.com

• Organisation: China Shouguang Vegetable Demonstration Area (VDA)
• Contact: Meizhi Zhang
• Email: sgsfyzmz@163.com

Greece

• Organisation: Athens University Of Economics and Business (AUEB)
• Contact: Professor Konstantinos G. Zografos
• Email: kostas.zografos@aueb.gr

Germany

• Organisation: Bremen Institute of Industrial Technology and Applied Work Science at the University of Bremen (BIBA)
• Contact: Martin Schnatmeyer
• Email: sna@biba.uni-bremen.de