Supplier interrelationship management in project-based industries: a systematic review

In recent years, supplier relationship management has become the crucial yardstick for acquiring raw materials or services in project-based industries. Especially when there is a great possibility to carry out multiple projects, which requires growingly suppliers, managing supplier relationships is getting more important and complex. As one of the core components of supplier management, supplier interrelationship management utilizes the interrelationships among suppliers of the enterprise to generate synergistic effects that add to benefits and prevent cost overruns. However, current studies mainly focus on buyer-supplier relationship management. Supplier interaction management is still limited, which hardly helps managers to build and maintain a sustainable supplier base. In this paper, we conducted a systematic literature review on the research topic of interrelationships among suppliers in project-based industries. Following a traceable literature review process, 40 relevant articles are found for the full-text content analysis. The state-of-the-art of managing supplier interactions is then explored after reading and analyzing these articles in their entirety. Finally, the limitations of current studies and the possible actions of future research are suggested.