Supply chain Management (Term Paper Sample)

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Management
2nd September, 2014
Supply Chain Management
1. There are essentially five stages in this process of supply chain with three important flows.
The stages are:
458152574295034861508128002228850838200742950933450Suppliers Manufacturers Wholesalers Retailers End-customer.
The three main flows that are involved in this process are the flow of finances, information, as well as material.
When a customer buys a can of soda from a convenience store, the purchase essentially signifies the culmination of the supply chain’s delivery of the product, and the commencement of information in relation to the customer’s purchase flowing in the reverse direction CITATION Rob08 \l 16393 (Robert M.Monczka).
2. When a customer orders for a book from an online bookstore like Amazon, there are five different parties who are involved in this purchase process. They are namely, the suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and finally the end-customer. Again, the supplier-tier comprises of other parties like suppliers of various raw-materials like timber, paper, the packer, one who supplies chemicals, publishers, plastic manufacturer, and ink supplier, among others. All these people are involved in supplying the required raw material for the publishing of the book based the schedule of the order and production. At this stage of the supply chain, the presence of the procurement cycle revolves around the parties involved in the supply and manufacture. Due to the fact that even these people would not be in a position to judge or predict the actual demand of the end-customer while the execution of the above listed activities, the entire process can be defined as a push-process.
The manufacturing cycles is triggered only through replenishment orders from the retailer or the distributor, or through the customer demand forecast, even this would be push-process
On the contrary, the customer cycle is a process that takes place between the interface of the retailer and a consumer. Sometimes, the customer may skip the retailers, and might prefer to place the order with the wholesaler, and this leads to the non-existence of a one or two stages in the supply chain. However, this cycle is initiated by the customer, and all parties directly react to the demand of the customer, and thus it is pull-process CITATION Joh081 \l 16393 (Gattorna).