Web-Enabled Supply Chain

Web-enabled Supply Chain

- Anant Anupam
M2016HRM008

Web-enabled Supply Chain

Supply Chain

A supply chain is effectively the backbone of operations for a company. Responsible for the linkages from start to end, from receiving product/service orders, organising inputs for production of those orders, manufacturing and marketing of those products, taking care of the logistics for the operation and then delivering these to the customers according to their specifications, through carrying out the transactions and receiving the requisite payment from them. All these various steps historically would be part of a single supply chain as per the company or the product, but in an increasingly globalised world, such kind of interaction, between companies, countries and various stakeholders, interconnectivity is becoming paramount, giving rise to supply chain networks.

These supply chain networks are constantly under flux, due to the dynamic nature of global markets and demands, and require to stay relevant and responsive to the changing needs every so often. Thus, a supply chain, where information dissemination is limited, various parts of the chain stand to suffer, such as coordination of processes, advancement of orders, learning and predicting from behaviours, etc. In turn, this prolongs the inflexibility in the coordination that is required among the company, its customers, and its suppliers, and risk resulting in a broken supply chain.

Thus, interaction, and eventually integration of the supply chain, at its various levels, is paramount for a smooth functioning of a supply chain. Ever more so in the context of complicated and geographically distanced supply chain networks. With every round of industrial revolution, there have been transformations in the potential of the supply chains of the era. In the 1800s, water and steam powered mechanical production powered the initial advances in the mechanical production systems. Since then, electricity powered machines and assembly lines brought in a new wave in the 1900s, followed by the birth of industrial robotics and advanced automation in the 1970s to bring to the forefront computers and their power to the supply chain management (Schrauf & Berttram, 2015). Ultimately, today, the development of supply chains is heading towards digitization – in that customer orientation of companies is manifesting through a greater dependence of the erstwhile silo-ed distinct steps of product development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sales on completely integrated systems leveraging the power of digitisation. As a result of it, we arrive at what is known as the web-enabled supply chain network.

Web-enabled Supply Chain

Web-enabled supply chain refers to the “usage of web technologies, built upon the usage of IT solutions, to manage integrated supply chain activities” (Ranganathan, Teo, & Dhaliwal, 2011). It allows the supply chain to have an integrated network of suppliers, factories, warehouses, distribution centres and retailers, through which the whole chain of logistic processes is managed (Rashid, 2010). This is of paramount need today since there is an ever-multiplying quantities of suppliers and customers, and it creates the necessary bridges among them, through data, information and effective communication.