A Collaborative Digital Platform for Root Cause Analysis in a Value Chain

Collaboration among actors is necessary to create and develop resilience in value chains. However, collaboration tends to be quite restricted when companies are dealing with disturbances and looking for their root causes. With the objective of increasing collaboration among companies in the same value chain in the process of root cause analysis, this article proposes a high-level design of a digital platform. To develop the high-level design, a design science research approach was taken, with the participation of ten different companies. The proposed design is based on identified problems and requirements regarding root cause analysis in the value chain. This study contributes both practically and theoretically. Practically, the proposed high-level design can be used as a direct input for the actual development of a collaborative digital platform. Theoretically, in this study, problems and requirements regarding root cause analysis at the level of the supply chain are identified, adding to existing knowledge in the field.