Supply Chain Structure in Material Movement

Supply Chain Structure in Material Movement Name Institution Supply Chain Structure in Material Movement The supply chain structure and its management plays a significant role in ensuring operational excellence in process of moving materials from one member of the chain to the other. A supply chain refers to a system that is designed to plan, execute, monitor, and control, the activities involved in the movement of materials in their raw form until they reach the final consumption point. The system serves to reduce to the costs incurred in the transition process thus adding value to the products and service by creating a competitive and flexible material movement infrastructure. It is thus evident that the movement of the raw materials from their originating location to the point of consumption involves a vast network of integrated business tasked with different value addition responsibilities desired by the final consumer. The transportation of the raw materials, for instance, their storage, and transitory inventories are some of the activities involved in the process. An organization should invest in the good practice of managing the entire system to ensure that all the actors involved synchronize their actions to meet the desired outcome of the production or manufacturing unit in the supply chain. The management of a supply chain is an intense undertaking that requires the integration of all the stakeholders within the business network created to ensure on-time delivery of quality products to the consumer and through excellent services. A supply chain structure should have a capable management structure, efficient supply chain plan, reliable suppliers, and resilience against external and internal threats, all working in collaboration to meet the desired outcome. The supply chain structure employed by corporate organizations around the world serve to meet various purposes with customer satisfaction being the ultimate goal. It goes without saying that satisfied customers form the backbone of any business organization as it provides a competitive edge over other firms within the industry. Economic advantage in the form of strong financial background, such as reinvestment capital no longer counts as a guaranteed edge to outdoing competitors in the market for a given business entity CITATION Sag12 \l 1033 (Gadekar, 2012). Instead, it is the ability to maintain standardized processes in the production of goods and services, and excellent delivery services of both that makes for an organization’s success in the highly competitive 21st-century economic sector. Evidently, the end-user of a particular product plays a significant role in determining the profitability or rather the viability of any business venture. Consumers’ satisfaction, to be specific, is a genuine cause for concern for stakeholders in an organization as return on revenue is dependent on the number of customers and their base growth in purchasing certain products or services. Production of quality products and efficient delivery of services to clients is thus an added advantage for a firm within the competitive markets around the world. However, complex demands from the customers or the emerging trends of consumer sophistication challenges business organizations to ...