Globally, supply chain management (SCM) is the whole set of tools and methods that are used by managers in order to improve the supply chain of a company. Indeed, supply chain management is regarded as a process in which planning, implementing and controlling, allow the companies to satisfy the customers' needs and requirements efficiently. In other words, it is "the management of activities that procure materials and services, transforming them into intermediate goods and final products, and delivering the products through a distribution system". In fact, supply chain management is one of the ten operations-management strategy decisions that can be used to gain productivity, improve production and ensure customer satisfaction. Further, logistics management is closely linked to supply chain management because it consists of an "approach that seeks efficiency of operations through the integration of all material acquisition, movement, and storage activities".
[...] Logistics managers must make the supply chain really efficient and analyze it in order to improve it constantly. The last task is to take into consideration the environment and the technology; as they impact the following chain: Production Delivering Exploiting. The aim is to build a chain of suppliers whose focus is to maximize the value provided to the final customer. Furthermore, not only does the competition concern the companies but mainly the supply chains. What is important for the logistics managers is to consider the global company's economic objective. [...]
[...] Conclusion The complexity of supply chains has considerably increased, and the evolution of supply chain management has been divided into three significant steps: From the post WWII to the end of the 1980's: A decentralized management: no global planning because of departmentalization (often a functional one). From the late 1980's to the late 1990's: This period saw the emergence of a centralized way of managing, with the use of corporate planning, and also purchasing. Until these days: Until then, a mix of the two types of management described above was being used. [...]
[...] Moreover, there is now a very original tool available on the internet; a website where supply chain managers and logistics managers may come together to share information and experiences. It is a kind of association whose goal is to help supply chain managers collaborate and improve their effectiveness skills. This website is: www.cscmp.org . Founded in 1963, the site now has about 9,000 members. I think this is a good idea to try to gather supply chain managers from all over the world to share values and management methods. [...]
[...] Nowadays, the aim of supply chain managers is clearly to build viable relationships with suppliers and customers, through the organization. Efficient Consumer Response As an industrial and commercial strategy, the aim of the Efficient Customer Response for a company is to collaborate with its partners in order to better satisfy the end-consumers by providing the right product, in an efficient way. In other words, both the company and its partners must better organize the supply chain to ensure higher productivity, improved processes, higher response rate and so on. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
