SUPPLY CHAIN

Supply Chain Management

Executive Summary

This assignment in depth analysed the inherent supply chains in the food industry. Companies focus a lot on building efficient supply chains to attain or increase competitive advantage over their rivals. Another important aim of these initiatives is to deliver value to the consumer in a cost effective and speedy manner, the very pillars of an efficient supply chain system. The modern technology and scientific advancement has made many types of food available in the market. And this advancement has increased the demand for food supply chains. More and more organization now directly and indirectly impacts the food industry and thus form part of its supply chain. And these stakeholders are therefore responsible for the success and failure of the industry on the whole.

The scandal of horse meat in the beef products that were being sold in the United Kingdom's prominent supermarkets caused considerable outcry by the consumer groups over the food fraud that these supermarkets and their supplier did. Several reasons have been highlighted but the prominent among them are the complex supply chains where so many members are included that it becomes difficult to pinpoint the root cause in case a problem arises. Supplier sourcing and traceability of the food and the suppliers is therefore the main step to overcome the trust gap. The supermarkets need to ready to implement rigorous testing standards. They also need to prepare strong guidelines and checkpoints for their suppliers to make sure that the suppliers adhered to the food specifications that were given to them .

Supply Chain Management

Introduction

Companies now a day's focus a lot on building and rebuilding their supply chain network to deliver services and goods to their consumers inexpensively and as fast as possible. In the past having an excellent supply network chain has given many companies competitive advantage over their rivals. Many firms and top notch companies invest heavily in the state of the art modern technologies to boost their supply chain but when that started to feel inadequate they hired experienced professionals to increase their supply chain performance. The passion to be the best even pushed many companies to team up with other supply chain specialist companies to streamline their processes, invest in infrastructure that can be shared between the two or more companies and set the technical standards for the required performance. To prove this point take the example of American apparel firms who initiated a Quick Response Program to the needs of their consumers. The big grocery stores in United States and Europe publicized the Efficient Consumer Response Program and the United States food industry started Efficient Foodservice Response Programs for its consumer and all this was done with the backing of a strong supply chain network.

The main aim and objective behind these initiatives was to deliver value to the consumer with cost effectiveness and greater speed, the important pillar of supply chain management. But even that depended heavily on the stage of the industrial cycle the firm was ...