Supply Chain Management

According Gabler's Encyclopedia of logistics supply chain management is the active forming of supply chains in the economy, with the aim to ensure the success of all parties and to increase efficiency.

What is Supply Chain

Supply Chain corresponds to a value-adding supply chain. The term is used in logistics since the 1990s when the logistics got an essential factor for businesses success and describes the close connections between companies.

Supply chain management is concerned with the company's overall design and optimization of material and information flows. Processes should no longer run only within companies but from the first part of the supply chain (eg. raw materials) to the customer. Supply chain management is thus optimizing the value chain from "sheep to shop" and wins, in recent years more and more importance. This management approach is about balancing all the partners and stakeholders involved in the value-added chain and to reduce the problems between companies and freight forwarders. Even the planning can be improved in all companies by improving the communication between industry and trading companies. In this way, the customer needs will be satisfied faster and better. Any activity has to be efficient and oriented to customer satisfaction.

It is the third of four stages in the development of logistics. This development steps are  the following. After an instrumental phase, in which the logistics concentrated in particular areas and departments within the company follows the view that logistics has to optimize the cross-departmental approach across the organization. Other stage is supply chain management, as an enterprise-wide optimization of the entire value chain. A further appreciation experienced by the logistics through the approach of logistic networks.

SCEM is to control the logistics processes within the supply chain which was necessitated by critical events.

According to the operational planning and control processes, the corresponding action alternatives under SCEM are already conceptual developed in advance of different possible events.

Upon entering the critical situation there are already various influencing options available. Ultimately, as a quick decision can be made to keep the functioning of the supply chain upright.