HOW IN-DEPTH IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT?

“Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses, involved in the provision of product and service packages required by the end customers in a supply chain. Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption.” – Wikipedia. 

Now that you have a basic understanding on the flow of SCM as described above, you would realize that since the start of SCM a few decades ago, compared to the present years, it has evolved into an environment that requires better disciplines. With the evolution of each company’s operation needs and demands, a better supply chain strategy is needed to execute the ever changing profile which had gone rather complex, logistically and technically. The art of optimizing supply chain planning and execution capabilities for various inbound and outbound supply chain processes, now requires an appropriate mix of good leadership skills with broader expertise and deeper technical excellence. 

A good transportation management system (TMS) plays an important part in any supply chain management, as it would analyze the best mode of transportation with the least cost to ascertain reliability, punctuality, less risks and more profitability for your company. This is when you need the expertise of your designated SCM team to come into the transportation rate negotiations scene. Negotiating the best rates for your shipment of products can be quite a tedious and time consuming job if you were to arrange it by yourself. Just leave it to the SCM experts to handle the many steps of negotiation. These would start from gathering of quotations from the highest and lowest prices on the market, to identifying which transportation company would suit your shipment needs such as routes, shipment frequencies, shipment sizes, special requirements and more. Eventually, to benchmark those suitable companies that would provide your company with the best rates to meet your allocated transportation budget. 

Here are some of the products to view in order to understand more on the functions of a typical SCM company which would include the basic procurement/provisioning, inventory planning/forecasting, manufacturing distribution, warehousing, transportation up to customer services. Your designated SCM team would definitely guide you in executing your requirements at both strategic and tactical levels based on their recommendations.