A revolution in supply chain management? The potential offered by e-business systems

Résumé du document

An e-supply chain is the flow of materials, information, money, and services from raw material suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customers. A supply chain also includes the organizations and processes that create and deliver products, information, and services to the end customers. The term supply chain comes from the concept of linking together different partnering organizations. Simply put, a supply chain involves activities that take place during the entire product life cycle. In reality, a supply chain is more than that, as it also includes the movement of information and money and the procedures that support the movement of a product or a service.

Extraits

[...] Supply-chain replenishment is a natural companion to web-enabled customer orders. E-procurement is the use of web-based technology to support the key procurement processes, including requisitioning, sourcing, contracting, ordering, and payment. E-procurement supports the purchase of both direct and indirect materials and employs several Web-based functions such as online catalogs, contracts, purchase orders, and shipping notices. E-procurement can improve the operation of the supply chain in various ways: online catalogs can be used to eliminate redesigning of components in product development; visibility of available parts and their attributes enables quick decision making; online purchase orders expedite the ordering process; and advanced-shipping notifications and acknowledgments streamline delivery. [...]

[...] E-supply chain management (e-SCM) is the collaborative use of technology to enhance B2B processes and improve speed, agility, real-time control, and customer satisfaction. It involves the use of information technologies to improve the operations of supply chain activities(procurement) as well as the management of the supply chains(planning, coordination, etc).E-SCM is not about a change in technology alone; it also involves changes in management policies, organizational culture, performance metrics, business processes, and organizational structure across the supply chain. Supply chain partners are able to view partner collaboration as a strategic asset. [...]

[...] Collaborative commerce among members of the supply chain can be done in many areas ranging from product design to demand forecasting. The results are shorter cycle times, minimal delays and work interruptions, lower inventories, and less administrative cost. In fact, all these processes are developed by e-supply chain and e-networks technology. As an example, we take just a small part of the process at General Motors (GM).Designing a car is a complex and lengthy process. Each model created needs to go through a frontal crash test. [...]

[...] This gradual transformation has been going on since the mid-1990s, when internet bandwidth increased sufficiently. GM's first task was to examine over 7,000 existing legacy IT systems, reducing that number to about 3,000 and making them Web enabled. GM's new EC system is centered on a computer- aided design (CAD) program from EDS large IT company, which is a subsidiary of GM). This system, known as unigraphics, allows 3D design documents to be shared online by both the designers (internal and external) and engineers; all of whom are connected by the EDS software tools. [...]

[...] In this part of the supply chain, the major concerns are production management, manufacturing, and inventory control. The downstream part of the supply chain includes all the activities involved in delivering the products to the final customer. In the downstream supply chain, attention is directed at distribution, warehousing, transportation, and after-sale service. Managing supply chains can be difficult because of the need to coordinate several business partners, several internal corporate departments, business processes, and possibly many customers. Managing medium to large supply chains manually is almost impossible. [...]