SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORK

Over the past decades, there has been increasing quest about the topic supply chains whereby greater number of publications and journals were created to analyse and discuss the topic, issues and challenges facing supply chain management. It is pertinent to emphasise that supply chain is a very demanding topic in the business environment.

The recent advancement of computer technologies, advanced production of technologies, transportation and telecommunications has accelerated the globalisation of markets and businesses. As a result of this, industrialised countries turned into multinational and embarked on another adventure for new areas of efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings (Haksever and Render 2013) .

During the course of this adventure, Burgess et. al., (2006) supported that a whole lot will be gained through consolidation, coordinating and rationalising the flow of goods, services and information in their supply chains.

Moreover, for this to be a success, firms within the supply chain category must collaborate, unite and comply with the competitive terms as the success of the company relies on the performance of the supply chain.

It is apparent that the noticeable development of the 1980s and 1990s was the transformation in customer’s hopes and utilisation habits. These days, customers expects variety of quality products offered at a cheaper price and the customisation of those products they intend to buy.

So far, these expectations have been boosted and extremely accomplished to a large extent through the accessibility of the internet and World Wide Web whereby customers can easily purchase what they want from the comfort of their house or anywhere at anytime and then having the goods delivered to their doors.

This advancement in the purchasing habits have made manufacturers and companies very much reliable on their supply chains for customer’s maximum satisfaction and to remain competitively advantageous.

Coyle et al (2009) define supply chain as a system that comprises of those activities, organisations and facilities connected in the value-­adding conversion of inputs (raw materials, land, capital,parts and supplies) into outputs (finished products, goods) and then delivered to the end users or customers.

As a result of this, Bidgoll (2004) suggests that companies no longer rely on themselves, rather must collaborate with customers’ customers and with suppliers’ suppliers to coordinate their activities, an approach that led to the area of supply chain management.

Seifert (2003) suggested that effective supply chain management is a component of efficient consumer response, a management idea that deals on how to vertically collaborate in retailing and manufacturing industries with the sole aim of ensuring maximum customer’s satisfaction.

Industries in the supply chain include; the suppliers, intermediaries, customers, logistics and transportation providers. It is therefore the management of various activities involved in sourcing, procurement, transformation and logistics management.

According to Haksever and Render (2013) supply chain management comprises of the planning and management of all the activities involved in identifying, purchasing, transformation and all logistics management activities.

Apparently it integrates supply and demand management within and across businesses into a united and high­ performing business operating model across sales, product design, finance, information technology and marketing zone.

Basically, it comprises of sourcing, transformation and logistics whereby sourcing identifies the raw materials, transformation transforms the raw materials into finished products and logistic transports the products from the production site to the utilisation point.

Having discussed distinctly the supply chain management, a question that carefully needs to be addressed is, ‘How can supply chain performance be measured?’ and a related question is ‘What strategies are adopted by industries to boost supply chain performance?’.

Rangaraj et al (2009) agreed that the performance of a supply chain is the outcome of the various procedures and rules that coordinate different demanding sectors of the supply chain. Companies spend huge amount of money to upgrade their supply chain performance using mechanised systems, process re-­engineering and employee’s facilitation (Douglas, 2004).

Many aspects and objectives evolved with the aim of boosting supply chain performance and competitiveness which exercises positive effect if these procedures and objectives are put in place.

Supply chain performance basically is measured when industries meet up with certain criterias such as; maximisation of resilience, total quality improvement,, inventory minimisation, employed fixed assets reduction, delivery performance goal, and customer service optimisation.

Sayed (2013) suggests that supply chain performance must be measured at every stage of the chain so as to balance short term goals of cash flow,,viability, flexibility and profitability.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) must be a key focus in evaluating the performance of the supply chain network. Moreover, considerable attention must be paid towards buyer-­seller relationship, not only the aspects of performance but on the wholistic financial performance as well (Cousins et al., 2008).

REFERENCES Bidgoll, H. (2004), The Internet Encyclopedia, Vol 3 John Wiley & Sons, Inc USA. P390.

Burgess, K., Singh, P., J. and Koroglu, R. (2006) Supply Chain Management: a Structured Literature Review and Implications for Future Research, International Journal of Operations & Production Management Vol. 26 No. 7, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, p704.

Coyle, J., J., Langley, C. J., Gibson, B. J., Novack, R. A., and Bardi, E. J. (2009), Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective, 8th edition, South Western Cengage Learning USA. pp.10­-20.

Douglas, M. (2004) The Eight Essential Supply Chain Management Processes, Supply Chain Management Review. pp. 20­-24.

Haksever, C., and Render, B. (2013) Service Management: An Integrated Approach to Supply Chain Management and Operations,Pearson Education, Inc Publishing Press, Upper Saddle River New Jersey USA pp. 81­-100.

Rangaraj, N., Raghuram, G., and Srinivasan, M., M. (2009) Supply Chain Management for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases, Tata McGraw­Hill Publishing Company Limited New Delhi. pp91­93.

Sayed, H., E. (2013) Supply Chain Key Performance Indicators Analysis, International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM) Vol. 2, Issue 1, p209.

Seifert, D. (2003) Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment: How to Create a Supply Chain Advantage, Amacom Publishers USA. p3.