ON THE WAY TOWARDS AN E-COACH FOR SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION AND REALISATION OF THE EFFICIENT CONSUMER RESPONSE CONCEPT

Abstract: Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) is a concept for supply chain improvement using many methods related to supply chain management (SCM). To implement and run this concept in practice well-trained personnel are needed closely collaborating throughout the entire supply chain. The ECR e-coach realizes the idea of helping a person not to learn and gain knowledge directly, but in actively creating and successfully passing individual learning processes through guidance-on-demand (i.e. coaching) in a virtual environment (e-coaching). The paper presents the results of a project aiming to support the implementation of the ECR concept in Poland and Germany by providing an e-coach for understanding and implementing ECR. It briefly introduces didactics implications and design rationales taken into consideration, illustrates e-coach content and functionality as implemented, discusses results from prototype use and evaluation, and summarizes lessons learned with regard to trans-national, interdisciplinary collaboration and technological challenges to be mastered.