What Is Supply Chain?
SC is defining a set of organizations or businesses that are cooperating to supply one or a set of needs of customers and deliver these needs to them.
SC contains 3 layers: 1- Upper stream layer 2- Internal layer 3- Downstream layer Upper stream layer: The upper stream layer contains the suppliers of raw materials or required materials that are necessary for production the product.
Internal layer: The internal layer contains the manufacturers or montage centers that are doing the production and packaging the product.
Downstream layer: The downstream layer point to distribution centers and retailers that have the task of delivering the product to end users.
There are 4 key factors in Supply Chain: 1- Facilities: points to the facilities that are used in production, transportation and storing the materials and products.
The effect of facilities is on the responsiveness of SC and it affects directly on costs.
2- Inventory: points to the number, type and capacity of inventories are using to store the materials and products.
If you have more goods and materials in inventory then you have more speed and flexibility to response the different demands but You have consider the costs because more entities in inventory increases the costs.
3- Transportation: points to the modes of transportation and routings in different layers and phases of SC.
It affects on responsiveness, performance and the costs of SC.
4- Information System: information connects the different phases and layers of sc together.
We can't have any cooperation between these phases and layer without information, so we can say that information is most important factor that defines the semantic of supply chain.
What exactly supply chain provides for customers? The answer is, product, service and information and whatever that have economic value for customer and makes profit for the providers.
How we can manage the cooperation between organizations, businesses, companies, manufacturers and other phases of SC? The answer is 3PL.
3PL or third party Level is an external partner that usually manages the follow of information between different phases of SC.
3PL is not a part of SC; it works as an external partner.
In addition E-businesses systems such as ERP, CRM and PRM can help the SC to have a systematic and well defined relation and cooperation between the phases of SC.
SC contains 3 layers: 1- Upper stream layer 2- Internal layer 3- Downstream layer Upper stream layer: The upper stream layer contains the suppliers of raw materials or required materials that are necessary for production the product.
Internal layer: The internal layer contains the manufacturers or montage centers that are doing the production and packaging the product.
Downstream layer: The downstream layer point to distribution centers and retailers that have the task of delivering the product to end users.
There are 4 key factors in Supply Chain: 1- Facilities: points to the facilities that are used in production, transportation and storing the materials and products.
The effect of facilities is on the responsiveness of SC and it affects directly on costs.
2- Inventory: points to the number, type and capacity of inventories are using to store the materials and products.
If you have more goods and materials in inventory then you have more speed and flexibility to response the different demands but You have consider the costs because more entities in inventory increases the costs.
3- Transportation: points to the modes of transportation and routings in different layers and phases of SC.
It affects on responsiveness, performance and the costs of SC.
4- Information System: information connects the different phases and layers of sc together.
We can't have any cooperation between these phases and layer without information, so we can say that information is most important factor that defines the semantic of supply chain.
What exactly supply chain provides for customers? The answer is, product, service and information and whatever that have economic value for customer and makes profit for the providers.
How we can manage the cooperation between organizations, businesses, companies, manufacturers and other phases of SC? The answer is 3PL.
3PL or third party Level is an external partner that usually manages the follow of information between different phases of SC.
3PL is not a part of SC; it works as an external partner.
In addition E-businesses systems such as ERP, CRM and PRM can help the SC to have a systematic and well defined relation and cooperation between the phases of SC.
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