: Supply Chain Management Is Primarily of Interest to Manufacturing Firms

all in all overview Supply durance are networks of organisations, information, technologies, activities and resources involved in the movement and innovation of somatic goods or services from suppliers to end consumers. These different organisations are interlinked by physical, information and monetary flows. Organisations create value by transforming raw products into perfect goods or repositioning of resources thru space and time, which is based on networks of supply range of a functions. two ways, it involves the movement and conversion of physical goods and information throughout supply ranges across the world.Therefore organisations and supply chains are closely interlinked in the knowledgeability of value for its customers. Manufacturing inviolables produce goods for use or sale using labour, machines, technology and other corporals usually on a bad scale. Processing of materials into products takes point in a factory or manufacturing plant where the organisatio ns labour and machines work in unison to transform raw material into a us commensurate product, or using many components and process it into a finished product for the end consumer, just like how a bread maker is able to transform flour to bread thru labour, skill, machinery and tools.Supply chain sleep withment for manufacturing buckrams To carry through economies of scale, manufacturing firms take to produce their products on a heavy(p) scale. Generally the high the production output of the firm, the lower the unit cost of their product school principal be. Besides output volume, the speed of production allow for determine the lead time from manufacture to delivery. High productivity bequeath enable manufacturing firms to obtain shorter production cycles which equates to get around competitiveness in their respective markets.Capacity management will determine how efficient the manufacturer will be in producing its goods. Over capability will result in change magnitud e wastage and be bandage under capacity will see the firm lose reliable profits that it should gain. Thus manufacturers unavoidably to carefully consider the type and criterion of capacity needed for its production when doing its supply chain planning. The timing of capacity changes also needs to be taken into consideration to achieve uttermost efficenty given that demands of their products varies with seasonal changes.The ability to react to market demand changes cursorily will determine manufacturers flexibility in keeping up with these demands. Manufacturers needs facilities to produce, whether warehouses to store its raw materials or finished goods, or manufacturing plants to produce their products. service facilities are needed by certain manufacturing industries such as consumer electronics to provide for returns. Distribution centres also determine the efficenty of production distribution and un-nesessary blood line belongings will result in higher holding cost.Such facilities require large investments and are integral of the manufacturers supply chain system and thus proper planning is needed when making these decisions regardong the size, location which instill the overall operations. How manufacturers candidacy their productions also determine how successful will they be in terms of productivity and quality levels. Different types of equipment and processes also usurp the cost and output of the manufacturing plant.Information systems that flow both upstream and downstream affects the forecasting, planning, inventory and production levels, they must be robust to ensure the manufacturing firm is able to react accordingly to changing demands and variations. In addition to their internal environment, manufacturing firms needs to consider procurement as an integral part of their supply chain strategy, supplier selection will affect the cost and how the manufacturer will run its production and ultimately affects the whole supply chain. Transpo rtation systems as part of the supply chain plays an equally important role for manufacturing firms success.To veer inventory holding levels many manufacturing firms are ladder on a lean basis where they practice Just-In-Time delivery to get word production schedules. Transportation networks to customers have to be equally efficient to reduce lead time in accordance to lean manufacturing. Many manufacturing firms supplement supply chains to achieve competitive advantages in their markets. the case select on Procter & Gamble (Bozarth & Handfield, 2006 Pg 91-92) is a good example of how a manufacturing firm leverages on their supply chain to improve on their effectiveness and bring down cost.Procter & Gamble used to operate under 5 different trading sectors according to different product lines such as paper goods and health care products in the mid 1990s. Originally this makes good sense to Procter & Gamble to better manage its diverse business. However for the retailers and c ustomers of Procter & Gamble who is purchasing with all the different five entities, it also meant different fellowship processing, invoicing and deliveries when at the core the five entities are all under the same company.For Procter & Gamble it also a logistical nightmare as they faced issues with high volume of targets which resulted in errors, uneconomical deliveries with many trucks delivering to the same customer with less than truckload full and inefficient invoicing by the different entities to the same customer. After Procter & Gamble redesigned the information and physical flows across their five entities, their customers only need to deal with one entity for all its product range and logistical process.The end result is a win-win speckle where Procter & Gamble increased its profitability through cost savings and increased customer satisfaction. Their customers also gained with the efficient processes and they are also able to have it off volume discounts from consoli dated orders across their product range. Summary In order to excel, manufacturers might need to produce high variations of products, produce in large volumes to meet economies of scale, be flexible enough to meet the volatile markets demands and run a lean and efficient supply chain to save costs and reduce wastages.In view of such, supply chain management to manufacturing firms are of consummation importance if they wish to compete in todays fiercely competitive markets. Besides making and selling a product, manufacturing firms need to manage and leverage on supply chain strategically in order to gain competitive advantages. As a result of globalisation and fast technological changes, manufacturing firms needs to constantly focus on supply chain management to align their internal operations with their external environments.