iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Supply Chain

This article or section is written like a personal reflection or and may require .
Please [ improve this article] by rewriting this article or section in an . (, talk)
Enlarge picture
Supply chain diagram
A supply chain, logistics network, or supply network is a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service in physical or virtual manner from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities (aka value chains or life cycle processes) transform raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. Supply chains link value chains.[1]

Today, the ever increasing technical complexity of the distribution of standard consumer goods, combined with the ever increasing size and depth of the global market has meant that the link between consumer and vendor is usually only the final link in a long and complex chain or network of exchanges.

This supply chain begins with the extraction of raw material and includes several production links, for instance; component construction, assembly and merging before moving onto several layers of storage facilities of ever decreasing size and ever more remote geographical locations, and finally reaching the consumer.

Although many companies and corporations today are of importance not just on national or regional but also on global scale, none are of a size that enables them to control the entire supply chain, since no existing company controls every link from raw material extraction to consumer.

Many of the exchanges encountered in the supply chain will therefore be between different companies who will all generally seek to maximize company revenue within their sphere of interest but will have little or no basic knowledge or interest in the remaining players in the supply chain except those to which it is directly linked.

There are a variety of supply chain models, which address both the upstream and downstream sides.


The SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference) model, developed by the Supply Chain Council measures total supply chain performance. It is a process reference model for supply-chain management, spanning from the supplier's supplier to the customer's customer.[2]. It includes delivery and order fulfillment performance, production flexibility, warranty and returns processing costs, inventory and asset turns, and other factors in evaluating the overall effective performance of a supply chain.

The Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF) introduced another Supply Chain Model. This framework [3] is built on eight key business processes that are both cross-functional and cross-firm in nature. Each process is managed by a cross-functional team, including representatives from logistics, production, purchasing, finance, marketing and research and development. While each process will interface with key customers and suppliers, the customer relationship management and supplier relationship management processes form the critical linkages in the supply chain.

The eight key processes are: In the 1980s the term Supply Chain Management (SCM) was developed, to express the need to integrate the key business processes, from end user through original suppliers. Original suppliers being those that provide products, services and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders. The basic idea behind the SCM is that companies and corporations involve themselves in a supply chain by exchanging information regarding market fluctuations, production capabilities.

If all relevant information is accessible to any relevant company, every company in the supply chain has the possibility to and can seek to help optimizing the entire supply chain rather than sub optimize based on a local interest. This will lead to better planned overall production and distribution which can cut costs and give a more attractive final product leading to better sales and better overall results for the companies involved.

Incorporating SCM successfully leads to a new kind of competition on the global market where competition is no longer of the company versus company form but rather takes on a supply chain versus supply chain form.

The primary objective of supply chain management is to fulfill customer demands through the most efficient use of resources, including distribution capacity, inventory and labor. Various aspects of optimizing the supply chain include liasising with suppliers to eliminate bottlenecks; implementing JIT techniques to optimize manufacturing flow; and using location/allocation, vehicle routing analysis, Dynamic programming and, of course, traditional logistics optimization to maximise the efficiency of the distribution side.

Starting in the 1990s several companies choose to outsource their supply chain management by partnering with a 3PL, Third-party logistics provider.

References

1. ^ Anna Nagurney: Supply Chain Network Economics: Dynamics of Prices, Flows, and Profits, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-84542-916-8
2. ^ SSC Supply Chain Council, SCOR Model
3. ^ the Supply Chain Management Institute - framework

See also

External links

Logistics is the art and science of managing and controlling the flow of goods, energy, information and other resources like products, services and people from the source of production to the marketplace.
..... Click the link for more information.
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.

Colloquially, 'virtual' has a similar meaning to '-' or 'pseudo-' (prefixes which themselves have quite different meanings), meaning something that is
..... Click the link for more information.
Supplier may refer to:
  • Manufacturer, uses tools and labor to make things for sale
  • Processor (manufacturing), converts it from one form to another
  • Packager (manufacturing), encloses products for distribution, storage, sale, and use

..... Click the link for more information.
customer is someone who makes use of or receives the products or services of an individual or organization. The word historically derives from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods there, and with
..... Click the link for more information.
The value chain, also known as value chain analysis, is a concept from business management that was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
..... Click the link for more information.
A Raw material is something that is acted upon by human labour or industry to create some product that humans desire. Often the term is used to denote material that came from nature and is still in a unprocessed or minimally processed state.
..... Click the link for more information.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information.
..... Click the link for more information.
In Economics Demand Management is the art or science of controlling economic demand to avoid a recession. The term is also used to refer to management of the distribution of, and access to goods and services on the basis of needs. An example is social security and welfare services.
..... Click the link for more information.
Order fulfillment (in BE also: order fulfilment) is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer. Sometimes Order fulfillment
..... Click the link for more information.
Supply management is a term describing the methods and processes of modern corporate or institutional buying. This may be for the purchasing of supplies for internal use, purchasing raw materials for the consumption during the manufacturing process, or for the purchasing of goods
..... Click the link for more information.
This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article.
..... Click the link for more information.
Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain as efficiently as possible. Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from
..... Click the link for more information.
Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain as efficiently as possible. Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from
..... Click the link for more information.
For , see .


Inventory is a list for goods and materials, or those goods and materials themselves, held available in stock by a business. Inventory are held in order to manage and hide from the customer the fact that manufacture/supply delay is
..... Click the link for more information.
dynamic programming is a method of solving problems exhibiting the properties of overlapping subproblems and optimal substructure (described below) that takes much less time than naive methods.
..... Click the link for more information.
Logistics is the art and science of managing and controlling the flow of goods, energy, information and other resources like products, services and people from the source of production to the marketplace.
..... Click the link for more information.
A third-party logistics provider (abbreviated 3PL) is a firm that provides outsourced or "third party" logistics services to companies for part, or sometimes all of their supply chain management function.
..... Click the link for more information.
Due to the rapid advancement of technology such as pervasive or ubiquitous wireless and internet networks, connective product marking technologies like RFID and emerging standards for the use of these defining specific locations using Global Location Number(s), the basic supply chain is
..... Click the link for more information.
APICS The Association for Operations Management, is a not-for-profit international education organization, offering certification programs, training tools and networking opportunities to increase workplace performance.
..... Click the link for more information.
A cold chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain. An unbroken cold chain is an uninterrupted series of storage and distribution activities which maintain a given temperature range.
..... Click the link for more information.
This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the for details.
This article has been tagged since September 2007.

..... Click the link for more information.
A Demand chain is composed of the enterprises that sell the goods or services.
  • Distributors
  • Resellers
  • Catalog sellers
  • Site rentiers
  • Wholesellers

Customer Communities


..... Click the link for more information.
Demand Chain Management is the management of upstream and downstream relationships between suppliers and customers to deliver the best value to the customer at the least cost to the demand chain as a whole.
..... Click the link for more information.
Demand optimization is the application of processes and tools to maximise return on sales. This usually involves the application of mathematical modelling techniques using computer software.
..... Click the link for more information.
Distribution is one of the 4 aspects of marketing. A distributor is the middleman between the manufacturer and retailer. After a product is manufactured it is typically shipped (and usually sold) to a distributor.
..... Click the link for more information.
Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) is a method used in business administration for planning orders within a supply chain. DRP enables the user to set certain inventory control parameters (like a safety stock) and calculate the time-phased inventory requirements.
..... Click the link for more information.
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that concerns the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, material and process.
..... Click the link for more information.
Liquid Logistics is a special category of logistics that relates to liquid products, and is utilized extensively in the "Supply Chain for Liquids" discipline.

Standard logistics techniques are generally used for discrete or unit products.
..... Click the link for more information.
Logistics is the art and science of managing and controlling the flow of goods, energy, information and other resources like products, services and people from the source of production to the marketplace.
..... Click the link for more information.
Marketing is a social process which satisfies consumers' wants. The term includes advertising, distribution and selling of a product or service. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, often through market research.
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter