Supply Chain Perspectives
Autor: Eduardo Vieira | Publicado: 2016-10-27T16:13:00-07:00




In this post,
all I want to do is introduce some concepts of Supply Chain Management and
Logistics.

But first, let's
talk about some supply chains for a few different products.



And so what I'm
showing here are four very different products that you would think have very
different supply chains.



We have bananas
being sold in a U.S. grocery store, we have an integrated ignition assembly, we
have women's pumps and we have a bunch of bags of cement-- of concrete.



So if you look
at these, you'd think, wow! There's nothing that could be similar in these
supply chains.



And the
interesting thing about supply chain management is that every product has a
story, and every product is part of multiple supply chains.



So everything
you touch-- and most things you don't—flow through some kind of supply chain
somewhere in the world.



"It's very, very
rare where you can think of an item that gets created, manufactured, or grown,
and consumed in the exact same place, at the exact same time."



You need to have
supply chains to overcome the tyranny of time and space. And that's what supply
chains do. But again, you look at these four very different products, and
what's interesting is there's a lot of similarities you might not think about.



So if I look at
the bananas up here in the top left, and compare that to the shoes, you can
think about perishability.&nbsp;Because, yes,
bananas will spoil over time, but so will women's shoes. Style is very fickle. So
what's in for this season will not be in for too long.



So the idea of
perishability, how long something will stay fresh and able to be sold at its
normal standard price, is something that is not just about fruit, it's about
many other fashion items.

Then you can
think about sourcing.



You don't have a
lot of choice of where you can source cement, or for where you can source
bananas. I can't grow bananas up here in Vila Velha. I could try in a
greenhouse but it'd be very, very expensive.



You can't mine
for cement where it doesn't already exist. So sometimes your product is tied to
a sourcing location that you cannot change.



Then you could
think of products that are single-- individual items like bananas, there's
really only one part to the banana, or the cement--while there are many
chemicals you might put in there as additives.



But you look at
products like this ignition and the shoe.

They're made up
of components. And it could be that those components are not made by you, but
by someone else. And therefore, you're part of a larger supply chain. And
finally, you can look at who you sell to.



For shoes,
you're selling to a consumer. A woman is probably buying these and, who knows,
maybe a guy.You never know. So someone is buying this as a consumer. Same thing
with bananas.

It's a B to C, a
business to consumer, business.



For these
ignition assemblies, it's probably being sold to an auto manufacturer, or an
original equipment manufacturer, or OEM. Same thing with these bags of cement. Chances
are it's being sold to a construction company.



So if I look at
these four different products, what's really interesting is that the same
decisions are being made by the people managing those supply chains in each one
of these products.

Now the values
and the outcomes might differ, but they're all making the decisions of where
can I source from?



Here we have the “Magics questions” of Supply Chain!

How much inventory
do I hold?

How do I
forecast my demand?

Where do I stock
my inventory?

How do I move my
product from source to final consumption?



And all those
kind of things.



And the SCM
discuss these concepts and methodologies that will allow you to plan supply
chains for products as diverse as bananas, women shoes, automotive parts, cement,
and everything in between.

So what are we
going see on next posts?... Well, we're going to answer five big questions.

First is, what's
a supply chain?



Then we're going
to talk about the differences between logistics and supply chain management.

Then we're going
to talk about different perspectives of how you can view supply chain
management. Because it's a very new and evolving field, people have different
perspectives, and it helps you to understand those.



I'll try to talk
about the challenges that are faced in the supply chain. And then, finally, the
last thing we'll do, is why should you care?

You guys can
follow me here on linkedin
or here on my blog.



Cheers.


Eduardo Vieira
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