Explain the factors to be considered in designing integrated supply chain management. Integrated Supply Chain Management:
The broadest
visions of integrated supply chain management are usually expressed in terms of
meeting the final customer’s product needs. At its core, ISCM involves
coordinating the flow of physical goods from material sourcing, through manufacturing,
to the points of consumption. As depicted in Exhibit 1, this entails the
efficient management of information and funds flows associated with goods as
they move along their overall value chain.
At one level,
ISCM is concerned with strategic issues such as the integration of internal and
external business processes, the development of close linkages between channel
partners, and the management of products and information as they move across
organizational and enterprise boundaries.
On another
level, ISCM can also be a tactical tool applied to the management of ongoing
operational activities. These activities may include customer service, control
of inbound and outbound flows of materials and information, and elimination of
channel inefficiencies, costs, and redundancies extending from raw materials acquisition
through manufacturing, distribution, consumption, and final return through the
channel by way of recycling or disposal. To a great extent, there is still a
high degree of variability of personal opinion about what, exactly, ISCM means.
These differing opinions often carry through to the extent that key people in
the same organization are not talking about the same things when they discuss
the concept of ISCM. Yet, to be competitive and to better serve the customer,
companies know that they must improve their supply chain operations.
With an eye
toward finding a common language, or at least some common ground, an array of manufacturers,
software developers, and transportation companies collaborated to create the Supply
Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR) illustrated in Exhibit 2.2 The SCOR
model attempts to develop an objective framework for looking at an
organization’s entire procurement and distribution network from the supplier’s
supplier to the customer’s customer.
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