Supply Chain Management
Global sourcing of materials and inputs has led to the evolution of the structure of the international economic and business environment (Edward, 3). it’s now possible to have access to lower cost manufacturing worldwide based on large extent on outsourcing labor-intensive manufacturing as indicated by China. Increasingly competitive business environment calls for need for more robust approaches to supply chain design and management (Edward, 8). Impact of supply chain in business is significant and exponential. It boosts customer service by making sure that the right product assortments and quantity are delivered on time.
Excellent supply chain calls for sales and operation planning. This process ensures the needs and objectives of each functional group in the supply chain are recognized and based on overall profit potential. To counter the challenges involved in supply chain, an organization requires the following principles as the possible solutions: customizing the logistics network to the service requirement and profitability of customer segments, segment customers based on the service need of distinct and adapt the supply chain to serve these segments profitably, listening to market signals and align demand planning accordingly across the supply chain ensuring consistent forecast and optimal resource allocation, developing a supply chain-wide technology strategy that supports multiple levels of decision making and gives a clear view of the flow of products, services and information, and adopting a channel-spanning performance measure to gauge collective success in reaching the end-user effectively and efficiently (David, 4-7) Additionally, companies can use make-to-stock, make-to-order and assemble-to-order strategies for effective supply chain. The complexity of the problem to globally optimize supply chain is significant by employing the strategy of minimizing internal costs, minimizing uncertainty and dealing with uncertain environments.