“What’s do you do?
I work in logistics?
Logistics? What’s that?
It’s warehousing, and transport, part of a supply chain?
Supply chain what’s that?”
This is a typical conversation I’ve had with countless people and for something so ubiquitous it’s amazing how people are unaware of what we in this business do. Every time people go to a supermarket and put a product into their basket, they themselves are the last part of the supply chain.
Maybe, this is a good thing, because people only realise when something goes wrong and there is a hole on the shelf.
“A supply chain is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution of these finished products to customers.”
You may also hear someone say it’s getting “the right product (and quantities) in the right place at the right time for the right price”.
I guess either way the supply chain can be complicated, whether it’s sourcing products, storage, transport, procurement, manufacture, there are many links in the chain and it only takes one to fail for the chain to break. That’s when things can get interesting…or frightening depending on your outlook.
Tags: SuplyChain
