ABSTRACT
Optimization of supply chain value can therefore be said to start with the ability of companies to optimize their productive resources in an effort to make and distribute their products as efÞciently as possible. Managing productive processes means planning for and controlling the resources, such as product design, materials, labor, and overheads, expended during the process of product conversion. Underlying this management process is, Þrst of all, a model of the plant itself, which describes characteristics such as capacity, cost, cycle times, and constraints. This model, in turn, enables the particular conÞguration by which the plant executes productive processes to achieve targeted objectives such as quality, order due date completion, quantity, and cost. Realizing plant process output, however, is not automatic. Effectively optimizing productive functions is a dynamic management process, and as the variables associated with product and process life cycles, quality, reliance on outside resources, and other factors increase, so does the complexity of the models
and methods necessary to manage them. Without effective planning and control tools, even the best structured process can not efÞciently work and will be poorly utilized, and without the necessary process output, the supply chain pipeline will slowly dry up and the proÞtability, indeed the very existence, of the entire channel network will be threatened.
