ABSTRACT
The second major leg of collaborative manufacturing is the supply chain and the continuous effort to improve the process of supply chain management. Supply chain management includes logistics, warehousing, vendor management, information accessibility and sharing, information security, design for manufacturability, scheduling synchronization, production management, and many more. A limited overview of supply chain vis-a-vis collaborative manufacturing is presented here. That view tends to be very broad and even somewhat undefined as we are in the early development stage of collaborative manufacturing. For an in-depth study of supply chain management, Ayers (2001), Langenwalter (2000), Poirier and Bauer (2000), and Schorr (1998) offer excellent information, and there are many more good books on the subject.
