Author: Rajiv Singh | Total views: 71 Comments: 0
Word Count: 662 Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 10:43 AM

Supply Chain Management : Sounds Geekish, but is very much commonsense

Have you heard of Just-in-time, TQM, The rise of Toyota as a powerful global player in the automotive industry, even surpassing the gaping mouths of the big three in the United states? You would have certainly come across the term 'Supply Chain Management' - It sounds like jargon, doesn't it? Well, it isn't so difficult to understand and it is something most manufacturing ( even services!) industries indulge in today.

Supply Chain management basically means that the process of managing the whole process of finding a suitable raw material, processing it and converting it into something valuable or useful that could be sold to the market.

The better a company is in managing its resources, the process of locating its raw materials, processing them, working on them, the entire production process, the out put, the packaging and even the labelling might constitute a simple supply chain management case study.

According to the CIO Magazine,

Supply chain management (SCM) is the combination of art and science that goes into improving the way your company finds the raw components it needs to make a product or service and deliver it to customers. The following are five basic components of SCM.

Supply Chain Management has a lot of visible and also invisible elements to it. The glamorous parts might probably be the vendor management and the like. It is the invisible parts of the supply chain that attain the status of primary importance. Things like labor management, procurement, warehouse management, Order processing, fulfillment and delivery.

The importance of supply chain management has been growing steadily over the recent years and more so because of the fact that the companies have been growing larger and larger in size.Due to this enormous increase in size, the companies gain more cost efficiency when they outsource some of the functions that they ought to do themselves to other specialized service companies that do the needful.

This enables the larger companies to be more flexible, focus more on their core competencies and create more value for their customers, while retaining profits by reducing costs at the same time. The ubiquitous, simple to use, nature of the Internet has made it possible to automate some of its supply chain management elements with the help of robust supply chain management software ( Though it is always not so easy to do the implementation and execution part!).

The extended supply chain - the vendors and their vendors network, has always become a critical link in the new era of Modern supply management theory and has taken it to another realm where everything boils down to cost cutting such that the whole process can create value for the customer.

Under normal circumstances people will not be able to bear ammonia concentrations at even a fraction of the flammable limit. The appropriate precautions are mainly those applicable against toxic effects in occupied areas and to work where sudden exposures are foreseeable, such as maintenance and repair work, including in particular filling and oil draining. Precautions against fire and explosion will be appropriate however, in unoccupied areas such as compressor houses and unattended plant such as cold stores where accumulations of vapour may go unnoticed.

Any person entering an area in which ammonia vapour is likely to be present at a significant level (eg for rescue or fault-finding purposes) must wear self-contained or airline breathing apparatus. This does not include routine visits to plant rooms etc. A suitable and properly maintained set should be conveniently sited close to, but outside, any area in which high levels of .ammonia vapour might arise. In no circumstances should anyone enter an area where a flammable concentration of gas may be present. Details of suitable apparatus are contained in Form 2501 "Certificate of Approval (Breathing Apparatus)," published annually by HSE. See also Guidance Note GS 5 regarding entry into confined spaces.

About the Author

Snowman Frozen Foods Ltd. is the first company in India to set up frozen and chilled food distribution system on pan India basis. distribution logistics is in the best position to act as a single window logistics solution provider for our business partners offering the entire rang of integrated logistics global logistics etc.