In many textbooks and almost every major (and minor) student assignment, I read about the ever fierce competition in many industries, fueled by globalisation and IT, and of course, this does put logistics & supply chain management into the centre of the Universe.
I had one of these crazy moments of thougth at the LRN 2007 conference last week during one of the sessions. During the last 20 or 30 years, many business models in logistics call for integration and substantial reduction of redundancies (cut down inventories, etc). Well, so far so good.
Recent vocabualry in the SCM literature includes resiliance, risk, robustness, sustainability, product recalls, reverse logistics.
Is this due to the fact that the business environment is changing fast? Or can it be the case, that many ‘business models’ do not allow realistic (e.g. in terms of time and cost) reaction to changes? Further, has this new vocabulary developed as a consequence of the incompletness of the ‘old business models’, that have left businesses with a vulnerable design of their supply chain?`
In other word, and as stated in a previous blog: Is supply chain management the solution to a particular problem, or maybe the problem itself?
Árni