Supply Chain Management for Engineers

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Designing and Engineering the Supply Chain for Competitive Advantage

1.1  Overview

Generally speaking, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products, and deliver the products to customers through a distribution system. It encompasses all the information, financial, and physical flows from the supplier’s supplier to the customer’s customer. Consider the automotive industry; the development, design, production, marketing, and delivery of new cars is a team effort that begins with extracting raw materials from the earth, continues through design, fabrication, and assembly, and ends with fit and finish in the dealer’s showroom. When a customer buys ...