First time I heard about Supply Chain Management (SCM) I didn’t have
the notion of what it was.
When I start to search about, I realized that it has a lot in common
with quality management (QM), and so, for companies, it will be really
important, in these times of crises, to take advantages of their integration.
There are a lot of different definitions for Supply Chain Management (SCM). One of them says that is an integrated
philosophy to manage the total flow from the supply of raw materials to the end
customer (Tyndall et al., 1998; Ellram and Cooper 1990;
Houlihan 1988).
But SCM can also be seen as a cycle
composed by marketing; product design, suppliers, manufacturing, logistics and
reverse logistics.
Marketing can predict the level of demand, by conducting research
which helps to identify potential markets and forecast projected sales.
Product design concerns the specification and materials required for
an efficient and cost effective production.
The suppliers are chosen considering different points, and they
provide the raw materials and components that will be used to create the finish
products.
When raw materials are available is time to manufacturing!
Production lines are developed in order to transform the raw materials and the
components in to a finish good that can be sold to the customers. For that the logistics
have to spring into action.
Logistics regards a set of activities as planning, coordination and
execution required for distribution to the customers. Depending on the product
the customer can be a whole sealer, a retailer or a common consumer.
Finally, the reverse logistics concerns all the products that due to
returns, reparation or recycling must flow back to the supply chain. With this
step we also get some information that can be used to make some improvements on
the products which bring us back to the marketing step!
SCM integrates all parties along the
value chain into one whole organism and manages them as the assets of a wide
company (Simchi-Levi et al., 2000, Mentzer et al., 2001; Kannan and Tan, 2005;
Wang et al., 2004).
Improving the quality of all supply
chain processes leads to cost reductions, improved resource utilization, and
improved process efficiency (Wang et al., 2004).
In order to study the integration of
QM and SCM, a conceptual model has been develop and will be validated using a
structural equation model after a survey questionnaire be prepared and answered
by specialists in these areas from Portuguese companies. Subsequently a model
of integrated performance evaluation will be developed and validated through
case studies of some companies. This process of evaluating individual
performance of organizations is very important so that they can optimize
results and subsequently the performance of the entire chain.
With all this work I hope that in
the end we can be able to help companies to continuously improve in all their
activities.
References
Ellram,
L. M. and Cooper, M. C., Supply Chain Management, Partnerships, and the Shipper
– Third Party Relationship, The
International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1-10,
1990.
Houlihan, J. B., International Supply Chains: A New
Approach, Management Decision, vol.
26, no. 3, pp. 13-19, 1988.
Kannan,
V.R., Tan, K.C., Just in Time, Total quality management, and supply chain
management: understanding their linkages and impact on business performance, Omega, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 153-162,
2005.
Mentzer, J.T., DeWitt, W.,
Keebler, J.S.., Min, S., Nix, N.W., Smith, C.D. and Zacharia, Z.G., Defining
Supply Chain Management, Journal of
Business Logistics, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 1-25, 2001.
Simchi-Levi, D., Kaminsky, P. and Simchi-Levi, E., Designing and Managing the Supply
Chain—Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies, McGraw Hill, Singapore, 2000.
Tyndall,
G., Christopher, G., Wolfgang P. and John, K., Supercharging Supply Chains: New Ways to Increase Value through Global
Operational Excellence, John Wiley & Sons, NY, 1998.
Wang,
F., Du, T.C. and Li, E.Y, Applying Six-Sigma to supplier development, Total quality Management, vol. 15, no.
9-10, pp. 1217-1229, 2004.
Cristina Fernandes
Postdoc Researcher
Quality and Excellence Research Group
University of Minho
