Samenvatting

Much research has been done on mergers and acquisitions, their implementation and impact. However, there still are questions to ask, especially when looking at specific industries or departments. For that reason, the objective of this report is to provide a methodology that helps planning departments of dairy cooperatives to analyze the impact of an acquisition on their department, so that they can better understand and prepare for the consequences. Topics dealt with in this study are the dairy sector and cooperatives, mergers and acquisitions, trends and developments of mergers and acquisitions, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and planning and logistics. The following research question has been developed: ‘In what ways does an acquisition affect the structure, processes, and systems of the planning department of a dairy cooperative with an ERP system?’.