ABSTRACT
The main streams of integrated supply chain management include activities like sourcing, procurement and supply management, materials management, demand management, logistics and distribution management. Five major industry-led initiatives are observed as the evolution of supply chain management discipline as we understand now. These are creation era started in the early 1980s in the USA. The concepts of total quality management (TQM) and business process re-engineering (BPR), Kaizen has emerged during this phase. The integration era in the 1990s has seen several IT-related initiatives like electronic data interchange (EDI), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Then came the globalisation era and during that phase we witnessed large acquisitions and mergers followed by specialisation era 1 and II. In specialisation era 1, concepts of outsourced manufacturing and distribution were implemented and businesses were focusing on customer service and customer retention. Multinational corporations shifted production to low-cost countries and domestic corporations shifted the production centres to states and locations where tax holidays and other incentives were made available. Role and importance of SCM were realised by businesses and SCM has emerged as an important function. During last decade the logistics and supply chain infrastructure has improved significantly in India. The current status of logistics infrastructure and its impact on economic growth of the country is discussed.
