INTEGRATED SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT IN THE GOVERNMENT ENVIRONMENT
ABSTRACT
With the fall of East European Socialist-Bloc and opening up of the Asian markets, the trade barriers began falling during the 1980’s and continued throughout the 1990’s. This development lead to organizations having a supply chain, that criss-crossed the whole globe. The proliferation of trade agreements has thus changed the global business scenarios. The Integrated Supply Chain Management (ISCM) is now not only a problem of integrated logistics (as a process) but also demands that the supply chain management (SCM) must look into the ramifications of these arrangements on the cost of transportation (including tariffs or duties) of products within a trade zone and outside it, besides, developing logistics strategies. The field has thus developed in the last few years for bridging the gap between demand and supply vis-à-vis efficiency and cost trade-offs. The SCM now not only involves the “management of logistic function”, as was done in the past (to achieve internal efficiency of operations) but, includes the management and co-ordination of activities, upstream and downstream linkage(s) in the supply chain. The integrated supply chain management, in particular include :
Planning and Managing supply and demand; Warehouse Management; Optimal Inventory control; Transportation and Distribution, Delivery and customer’s delight following the basic principles of supply chain management viz. working together; Enhancing revenue; Cost control; Assets utilization besides, customer’s satisfaction.
The last two decade has seen the rise of a plethora of acronyms always used in conjunction with production, operational management and control. To name a few JIT (Just-In-Time); TQM (Total-Quality-Management); ZI (Zero-Inventory); ECR (Efficient Consumer Response); VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory). All these