Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the integrated management of all activities from the source of raw materials through to delivery of the product or service to the final customer. It is concerned with ensuring that traditional approaches to managing companies – often characterised by fragmentation – is replaced by more integrated and holistic approaches. This means thinking beyond traditional functional and company boundaries and focusing on those processes that genuinely add value from a customer point of view. Most companies have a relatively small number of high level core business processes that create customer value and enhance shareholder value as a consequence.
Traditionally, SCM has been concerned with the achievement of two main objectives:
- Meeting (or exceeding) customer service requirements in targeted markets or market segments;
- Optimising total supply chain investment and cost.
Read the full article in the Irish Packaging Yearbook and Directory 2010