supply chain management essay

supply chain management essay

The Role of Technology in Enhancing Supply Chain Management: A Comprehensive Analysis

1. Introduction to Supply Chain Management

Traditionally, there are intra-company and inter-company supply chains. Supply chain management often focuses on intra-company. Functions within a company are vertically integrated; they interact with each other for information sharing, job scheduling, asset transfer, or transferring job plans between entities or stations, and so on. Departments performing inbound functions may coordinate together, ensuring that raw materials and tools are available at the right positions at the right times. Manufacturing centers’ operations are synchronized so as to produce high-quality products when required. Internal logistics usually transports half-finished products at different states or related products between centers according to assigned schedules or completes some short necessary transporting tasks that would be done at a warehouse. In all these intra-enterprise activities, managers try to minimize costs while satisfying some service-level requirements. A decision at any point in time might have widespread effects up or down the supply chain.

Supply chain management is a set of approaches utilized to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, and stores so that merchandise is produced and distributed at the right quantities, to the right locations, and at the right time in order to minimize system-wide costs while satisfying service level requirements. Today’s supply chain management strategies must play their roles with other firm strategies, such as new product development, mass customization, etc. They must have the ability to operate efficiently at various levels of planning and cooperation, from day-to-day routing and scheduling to long-term analysis for opening warehouses or adding new suppliers.

2. Key Components of an Effective Supply Chain

Several components are essential for the successful exchange of goods and services within a supply chain. An analysis of the literature on supply chain management suggests that five critical components can enhance the capability of a supply chain. These components are: integration, information sharing, demand management, supply management, and collaborative strategic orientation. Furthermore, all components are interconnected and interrelated. The success of any initiative depends on the degree of relative effectiveness of these components. However, it is questioned in the literature how to manage all these components. This paper focuses on the role of technology in enhancing these components in an effective supply chain.

2) Key Components of an Effective Supply Chain

The need for effective supply chains has been recognized by business entities in all industries. Since the staples of firm operations (quality, price, and timely delivery) all require the support of an effective supply chain, firms are seeking to establish an effective supply chain. The expression supply chain refers to the range of suppliers, factories, distribution centers, transporters, retailers, etc. involved in getting a product from its source to its different customers. This supply chain involves the flow, both forward and reverse, of materials, finished products, information, and finances. These flows are managed by a range of activities such as forecasting, purchasing, manufacturing, inventory management, distribution, logistics, and reverse logistics.

1) The Supply Chain

3. The Impact of Technology on Supply Chain Management

It is much easier than ever before for companies to contribute to the global market, keeping in mind nearly equal entry for both big and small companies. The entry into international business has led to a sharp increase in the significance of supply chain management and logistics. Thus, the need exists for students in professional fields to obtain a coherent understanding of the impact that supply chain management and logistics play in the success of international firms. As a consequence, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the technologies used by current e-commerce applications as well as research satisfaction.

Given the recent explosion in information technology, the perception exists that technology is the cure. Nevertheless, rather than necessarily identifying the root causes of the problems existing within the supply chain, technology seems to provide a band-aid of sorts. In this section of our paper, we will examine the current technologies used within supply chain management.

4. Challenges and Solutions in Implementing Technology in Supply Chains

Our economy has been working cautiously to build resilient, reliable, and efficient supply chains. This well-trodden path is guided by advances in information and communications technology (ICT) and in the techniques of supply chain management that have been taught in business schools for 25 years or more. As the basis for process automation, these technologies have allowed companies to operate at a scale and level of complexity that far outstrips anything that came before. The results include fundamentally restructured industries, a massive increase in global trade, and the explosion of consumer choice that is a feature of our daily lives, bringing us closer to the concept of just-in-time production and, in consequence, extremely efficient supply chains that are also extremely sensitive to perturbations.

With the elucidation of the potential benefits of technology within the supply chain and different types of technology such as those offered in companies like IBM, SAP, or others associated with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)/Data Integration, Predictive Analytics, Business Intelligence/Market Intelligence, or for Supply Chain design (Logility, JDA), the following sections bring forward the current challenges in implementing technology in supply chains and then go on to suggest technology solutions. The use of technology in supply chains is considered a necessity in adding speed to operations, providing visibility, and enhancing customer satisfaction, as one of the main deficiencies within the supply chain caused by the lack of supply chain visibility.

5. Future Trends and Innovations in Supply Chain Management

While the effects of novel technologies and corner concepts can be realized in achieving supply chain effectiveness factors, they must also be dynamically developed, well-integrated, and fully supported with respect to operation readiness, process readiness, human, technology, and information interactional issues. It is with these findings that more new, potentially unique, and interesting research and development opportunities leading to comprehensive, novel, and practical knowledge concerning international supply chain management modeling paradigms are expected to evolve. Some of the more evident ones include those for innovative technologies and various application paradigms with respect to e-manufacturing, e-commerce, e-business, and economic and competitive performance enhancement paradigms.

The technologies and concepts discussed in the previous section for enhancing global supply chain management are currently being applied in various manufacturing and service sectors, albeit sometimes only to enhance certain specific supply chain elements. Many of the technologies and pillars can also be coupled in various ways to induce multiple, complementary, and value-added effects. Furthermore, it is with ever-advancing international cooperation and the development of newer service concepts and knowledge-based products that these emerging technologies can be inextricably linked to enhance performances of increasingly efficient and effective supply chains. But as current principles become further deployed and integrated, especially within the constraints of advanced e-manufacturing, e-business, and agile multiple functional and virtual enterprise concepts, the differentiation of novel technologies and corner concepts again become the driving force to maintain and enable supply chain competitive advantages.