Critique review on Kopczak & Johnson - Essay Example

These shifts have guided, and will guide the managers in implementing the initiatives and enablers of the supply chain management, that should be implemented internally and with their partners. Instead of considering the impact of the field in terms of programmes and results, if the impact is considered in terms of business focus executives feel the strategic role of supply chain management in their business. Outsourcing, globalization and business fragmentation has compelled to redefine the supply chain processes which were complex and expensive.

The authors stress the need; as the supply chain management conveys the idea that the supply process should be viewed at a multicompany level. With this multicompany nature, the supply chain is not just simply an order fulfilment process but it should be the part and parcel of the product design, introduction, fulfilment and recycling. If considered fully in the business strategy and throughout the product life cycle, the full impact of the supply chain can be achieved. With their research authors found that six major shifts in the business focus are the result of supply chain management.

Shifts have redefined the business question, collection, sharing and the dissemination of the information from the management's point of view and the questions were posed from the point of view of the supply chain. . e and the disappointments in the initiatives of the industries like efficient consumer response and software projects were due to the less managerial focus on the business problems. The paper analyses the six major shifts in the business thinking. Shift one focuses on shifting from the old question as to how various functional areas of the company can be coordinated to supply the product to the immediate customers, to the new question of how the activities of different companies can be coordinated across companies and internally to supply the product to the market that is cross-functional integration to cross-company.

Many forms of cross company coordination has evolved, the private initiatives taken by the industry-dominant brand companies, public or industry-level initiatives, the semi public or shared initiatives such as the third party logistics in which net works of companies from different industries have attempted to create cost benefits through scale economies. The companies now realise that to derive the real benefits, it is not the type of the initiative but the competitive risks and tradeoffs associated with the integration should be addressed.

Shift two focuses on shifting from the old question of reducing the costs of production and distribution to the new question of minimising the costs of matching supply and demand along with reducing the costs of production and distribution that is from the physical efficiency to market mediation. Companies that excel in supply chain management effectively manage two aspects of the supply chain physical supply and market mediation. In industries for which demand is fairly predictable, the costs of the physical supply dominate, in industries which are innovative and highly responsive to changing fashions