STUDENTS' CORNER - 227
Supply Chain Management: Efficient
monitoring of interlinked processes
The best approach to managing any task is
planning with the best data and at the same time being prepared for some
failure. Managing involves mastering the known and venturing into the unknown;
that is, you begin with the known available facts and end up constructing a
future knowing fully well that future is ever uncertain. It only means that
the living of which business is a part,
possibly a major part, inheres unknown forces and influences. It ultimately
indicates that you can effectively manage the known facts but we cannot say
with the same certainty that we manage the future. To put it briefly and
simply, management means planning effectively and efficient management means
giving allowance while planning for the unknown factors which might force some
sort of unexpected turn of events. A good illustration now is ships stuck in
Ukrainian waters. The shipping companies, and other related stakeholders did not
think of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because it is totally unknown to them;
who could have guessed what Putin was planning.
So, supply chain management begins with
planning. Other facts involved in supply chain management are sourcing,
manufacturing, transport, and returning of the excess unwanted products.
We will see very briefly important
aspects of each fact. Sourcing implies getting all things required for getting
your products ready for your customer. It is most difficult task to accomplish
complete sourcing of needed materials. You have to attend to the internal as
well as external facts. Internal facts deal with primarily inventory and payments;
both must be effectively attended to; defective inventory and delayed payments
to suppliers are bound to impact your business efforts. Of course, all these
things get executed only under constant supervising and monitoring. Like living, business is an endless stream of
activities, small and serious. Monitoring ensures things are done in time or you come to know what needs to be
done urgently. Monitoring organizes your
priorities. That is business.
