Page 44 - DCAP302_ENTERPRISE_RESOURCE_PLANNING

Enterprise Resource Planning

notes Supply chain management (SCM) is the 21st century global operations strategy for achieving
organizational competitiveness. Companies are attempting to find ways to improve their
flexibility and responsiveness and in turn competitiveness by changing their operations strategy,
methods and technologies that include the implementation of SCM paradigm and information
technology (IT). However, a thorough and critical review of literature is yet to be carried out with
the objective of bringing out the pertinent factors and useful insights into the role and implications
of IT in SCM. The literature available on IT in SCM have been classified using suitable criteria
and then critically reviewed to develop a framework for studying the applications of IT in SCM.

Supply chain management practices and principles are evolving and changing rapidly, e.g.
through modern information and communication technologies. These changes affect the ways
supply chains are designed, the way they are managed, and how planning and control activities
take place within these chains. But how far have companies come in dealing with supply chain
issues? This paper investigates supply chain management strategies and practices in a sample of
128 Swedish manufacturing firms. We specifically study issues related to the supply chain design,
integration, planning and control, and communication tools for managing supply chains. The
main findings indicate the following. The extent to which suppliers and customers are involved
in supply chain planning and control is expected to increase steadily over the next 2 years. The
primary priority for the selection of supply chain partners is quality performance. However,
delivery dependability, cost efficiency, volume flexibility, and delivery speed are also judged to
be important inputs to the supply chain partner selection process. Today, companies expect to
broaden and deepen the use of new information and communication technologies for improving
supply chain operations.
Supply chain management (SCM) lets an organization get the right goods and services to
the place they are needed at the right time, in the proper quantity and at an acceptable cost.
Efficiently managing this process involves overseeing relationships with suppliers and customers,
controlling inventory, forecasting demand and getting constant feedback on what’s happening at
every link in the chain.
figure 2.7: erp, crm and scm

The supply chain involves several elements:
1. Location: It’s important to know where production facilities, stocking points and sourcing
points are located; these determine the paths along which goods will flow.

38 LoveLy professionaL university