10.1   : List and describe the components of a typical supply chain.

Plan – This is the strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products or services. A big piece of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, costs less, and delivers high quality and value to customers.

Source – Companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products. Companies must also develop a set of pricing, delivery, and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving the relationships.

Make – This is the step where companies manufacture their products or services. This can include scheduling the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging, and preparing for delivery. This is by far the most metric-intensive portion of the supply chain, measuring quality levels, production output, and worker productivity.

Deliver – This step is commonly referred to as logistics. Logistics is the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers. During this step, companies must be able to receive orders from customers, fulfill the orders via a network of warehouses, pick transportation companies to deliver the products, and implement a billing and invoicing system to facilitate payments.

Return – This is typically the most problematic step in the supply chain. Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products.

10.2  : Define the relationship between decision making and supply chain management.

Involve the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.

10.3  : Describe the four changes resulting from advances in IT that are driving supply chains

Visibility

more visible models of different ways to do things in the supply chain have emerged.  High                       visibility in the supply chain is changing industries, as Wal-Mart demonstrated.

Consumer Behavior

• Companies can respond faster and more effectively to consumer demands through supply chain enhances
• Once an organization understands customer demand and its effect on the supply chain it can begin to estimate the impact that its supply chain will have on its customers and ultimately the organizations performance

Competition

Supply chain planning (SCP) software – uses advanced mathematical algorithms to improve the flow and efficiency of the supply chain

Supply chain execution (SCE) software – automates the different steps and stages of the supply chain

Speed

These system raise the accurancy between internal users.Another aspect of speed is the company ability to satisfy continually changing customer requirements efficiency accurately and quickly.

10.4  : Summarize the best practices for implementing a successful supply chain management system

MAKE THE SALE TO SUPPLIER

• Not only will the people in the organization need to changes the way they work., but also the people from each supplier that is added to the network must change.

WEAN EMPLOYEES OFF TRADITIONAL BUSINESS PRACTICES

• Operation people typical deal with phone call, faxes and order scrawled on paper and will most likely want to keep it that way.

ENSURE THE SCM SYSTEM SUPPORTS THE ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

• It is important to select scm software that gives organizations an advantages in the areas most crucial to their business success.

DEPLOY IN INCREMENTAL PHASES AND MEASURE AND COMMUNICATE SUCCESS

• For instance instead of installing a complete supply chain management system across the company and all supplier at once start by getting it working with a few key supplier.

BE FUTURE ORIENTED

• The supply chain design must anticipate the future state of the business  because scm system likely will      last for many more years than originally planned manager need to explore hoe flexible the system will be when changes are required in the future.