What is Supply Chain Management?

In the previous post we discussed about BizTalk being used in Supply Chain Management Solutions, but people who haven't got any exposure to supply chain management domain may be wondering what exactly we are dealing with here. Lets have a small heads up on SCM.

Supply Chain Management

We are living in a world where businesses are interdependent and every business is seeking one or more commodity or service from another. Now, lets take a scenario where Business 'A' is manufacturing 'containers' and they need to keep track of the containers which get out of their depot, Businees 'B' manufacturing a soft drink is using those containers from Business 'A'. Now, the containers filled with Soft Drink cans are being sent to Business 'C' say 'WalMart' which would eventually sell the soft drinks. Now, if there can be central system which could track where a particular container is for all the 3 business starting from the moment when the container left the Depot and came back to it for cleaning or for any other purpose after completing the cycle through Business 'B' and Business 'C'. That system can be called as a Supply Chain Management system, which could keep a track of a supply in the entire chain for all the Businesses involved.