From the course: Careers in Supply Chain and Operations

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Supply chain management basics

Supply chain management basics

From the course: Careers in Supply Chain and Operations

Start my 1-month free trial

Supply chain management basics

- There are lots of different definitions for supply chains, but here is mine. A supply chain is a complex system made up of people, processes, and technologies that's engineered and managed to deliver value to a customer. Supply chains connect the functions in a company and they connect companies to their suppliers and customers. There are folks like Cranfield University professor Martin Christopher who argue that competition these days doesn't really occur between companies. Instead it's one supply chain competing against another. You might hear terms like value chain, demand chain, or supply network, but these days most of us just call it the supply chain. One of the easiest ways to explain it is to break up a supply chain into processes. For example the score model is a process framework from the Association for Supply Chain Management. It breaks all of the activities that occur in a company's supply chain into six main processes, plan, source, make, deliver, return and enable. So…

Contents