E-Supply Chain
I do remember the first time I heard about supply chain was when I was taking IELTS lesson (international English Level Test System) in china. A foreign teacher called Rohan told me this terminology. He graduated from Havard and get his PhD. majoring in international supply chain. He says that the future field which will be mostly focus on in business is supply chain. At that time I didn’t understand why he believed that supply will be so important because what I thought about supply chain was no more than delivering material or product from one plant to another.
Now after reading this chapter, I finally know what supply chain is and what E-supply chain is. ‘Supply chain is the flow of materials, information, money and services from raw material suppliers through the factories and ware houses to the end customers’. (Turban et al.2008 p.307)
Which means supply chain is not as easy as I understood before. It is not only visible materials but also includes invisible information and services and includes money as well.
This chapter told me there are three parts of supply chain upstream, internal and downstream which remind me that supply chain is a process which goes through from raw material suppliers to end users. I think ‘net’ is more proper than ‘Chain’. Supply chain just like a ‘net’ links all the orgnaisations which is related.
Take SYSCO as an example: It is one of the north america’s leading distribution or food supply companies. It distributes food and related products to restaurants, hotels, schools and hotels. (Turban et al.2008 p.358)
The upstream of SYSCO supply chain are the suppliers like Pantry Frozen Suppliers, Poultry Suppliers, Organic Suppliers. It is based on a direct ship model where these products travel directly from the producers or farms right to the distribution center then to the back door of the kitchen (Sysco ChefEX 2008) . Sometimes they are delivered...
Please login to view the full essay...