Supply Chain Management Psychology Narrative Essay Example

Supply chain management addresses fundamental issues of controlling the planning, sourcing, making, and delivering of manufactured goods. The supply chain encompasses sourcing and procurement, production scheduling, order processing, inventory management, transportation, warehousing, and customer service. If we add the generate demand sub-process to the traditional supply chain subprocesses, the extended supply chain's scope is impressive indeed.

With so much scope, it's not surprising that managing supply chains well is a great challenge. Supply chain management coordinates suppliers, factories, warehouses, distribution centers, and retail outlets to produce and distribute items to the right customers, at the right time, and at the right price to minimize costs while satisfying a certain level of service.

Many components are involved — all of which reflect on cost and service level. The focus is not on a specific cost component such as reducing inventory, but rather on minimizing system-wide cost. Integr