Requirements Analysis for Digital Supply Chain Compliance Management Platforms: Case of German Meat Industry

Abstract

The food industry faces increasing challenges in compliance management due to complexities such as evolving stakeholder demands and food industry standards. Digital compliance management platforms can support food supply chains in managing these complexities. It is important to capture the requirements across food supply chains to provide digital compliance management platforms that meet stakeholder needs within the chains. The study aimed to investigate the stakeholder-driven requirements of digital supply chain compliance management platforms within the German meat industry. The study was qualitative through the Delphi study approach. Prior to the Delphi study, stakeholder mapping was used to select the participants who are experts actively engaged with digital meat compliance platforms. In round 1 of the Delphi study, participants were asked to review the relevance of 51 existing requirements from a fresh fruit and vegetable digital compliance platform, with 50 requirements reaching full consensus among the participants. In the same round, the participants put nine additional requirements. In round 2 of the Delphi study, participants were asked to prioritise the nine additional requirements. Some requirements, like database connection, document versioning, and automatic document analysis, were found to influence user satisfaction, while others were less significant. This research shows that requirements transfer from the fresh produce sector to the meat sector is plausible. The transfer should recognise common requirements across sectors and incorporate those specific to the meat sector for improved user satisfaction.