Supply-Chain Survival in the Age of Globalization

CHAPTER 3

The Supply-Chain Management Concept

Although supply chains have existed since prehistory when humans began to trade, the formal concept of supply-chain management is relatively new. As recently as January 1997, the APICS Performance Advantage issue had on its cover “Supply Chain Management: What Is It?” Reportedly, the first use of the term supply-chain management (SCM) was in a report in 1982 by consultants Oliver and Webber.¹ Once just-in-time (JIT) introduced the concept of working with one’s immediate customers and suppliers, the extension in both directions to the entire supply chain was a logical concept. The transformation was not easy, as it was necessary to overcome decades of the materials-management concept, which basically ...