ABSTRACT
A supply chain ‘consists of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in fulfilling a customer request. The supply chain includes not only the manufacturers and suppliers, but also transporters, warehouses, retailers and even customers themselves. Within each organization, such as a manufacturer, the supply chain includes all functions involved in receiving and fulfilling a customer request. These functions include, but are not limited to, new product development, marketing, operations, distribution, finance and customer service’ (Chopra and Meindl 2007, p. 3). It has also been described as a ‘network of materials, information and services processing links’ (Chen and paulraj 2004), ‘an integrative approach to manage the total flow of the distribution channel from supplier to ultimate user (Cooper and Ellram 1993), or as ‘a logistics network consisting of suppliers, manufacturing centres, warehouses, distribution centres and retail outlets as well as the raw material, work in process and finished goods that flow between the facilities’ (Simchi-Levi et al. 2000). Therefore, supply chains are more like units of analysis rather than a single entity. Even the term chain limits the scope since a particular organization is likely to have multiple customers and many suppliers. It also may be active to differing degrees in multiple chains. In this sense the chain is really one of many routes through the organization and the other firms involved that contribute to satisfying many final customers. Technically we should talk of networks but so far we do not know how to manage such complexity and so we can try to improve single chains and hope that the interactions between chains at the level of the single organization is manageable.
