The concept of supply chain originated from logistics, and originally referred to military logistics replenishment activities. With the development of business, it is gradually popularized and applied to commercial activities. The ultimate goal of the circulation system is to satisfy consumers, expand the scope of circulation discussion, and bring the upstream and downstream members of enterprises into the scope of integration, thus developing a supply chain. It is hoped that through close cooperation between related enterprises, related enterprises and processes will be integrated, waste and duplication will be reduced, and business performance and service level will be improved.
At present, there is no unified definition of supply chain, and many scholars have given many different definitions from different angles. The American Supply Chain Council puts forward the following definition of supply chain: supply chain includes all activities related to product production and distribution from suppliers to customers.
Steven regards the supply chain as connecting material suppliers, production facilities, distribution services and customer management through information flow transmission and logistics feedback.
Erlam believes that supply chain is a comprehensive method to deal with material planning and control from suppliers to final consumers.
Harrington believes that the supply chain includes two parts: product flow and information flow, which belong to a two-way process. All members from suppliers to consumers form a virtual enterprise consortium, which links the activities of purchasing, manufacturing and distributing products with the activities of providing services to consumers.
Martin christopher, a famous British logistics expert, defined the supply chain in his book "Logistics and Supply Chain Management": the supply chain refers to the network of upstream and downstream enterprises participating in the process and activities of providing products or services to the final consumers.
In the study of Supply Chain Management and Its Application, China scholar Shan Geyuan pointed out that the supply chain integrates supply chain partners distributed in different regions in a larger area with the help of network technology, and tries to gain benefits through mechanisms such as sharing responsibilities and interests among organizations.
Lan and others believe that the so-called supply chain is a value-added chain composed of a series of enterprises such as raw material suppliers, parts suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and transporters. Raw materials and spare parts pass through the enterprises in the "chain" in turn, and gradually become products, which are handed over to the end users. This series of activities constitutes all the activities of a complete supply chain.
200 1 The national standard of Logistics Terminology (GB/T 18354-200 1) issued and implemented in China defines the supply chain as a network chain structure formed by upstream and downstream enterprises that participate in providing products or services to end users in the process of production and circulation.
The concept of supply chain has gone through a development process. In the early view, supply chain is a process within manufacturing enterprises, which refers to a process of transferring purchased raw materials and parts to users through production transformation and sales. The traditional concept of supply chain is limited to the internal operation of enterprises and pays attention to the utilization of their own resources.
With the further development of enterprise management, the concept of supply chain has been extended to contact with other enterprises, paying attention to the external environment of supply chain, and thinking that it should be a process of "transforming raw materials into products through the manufacturing, assembly, distribution and retail of different enterprises in the chain, and then reaching the end users", which is a broader and more systematic concept. This definition focuses on the integrity of the supply chain and considers the consistency of all members in the supply chain.
The concept of modern supply chain pays more attention to the network chain relationship around core enterprises, such as the relationship between core enterprises and suppliers, suppliers and even all positive relationships, users and users, users and all negative relationships. At this time, the understanding of supply chain formed the concept of network chain.
In the book Supply Chain Management, Ma Shihua, a famous scholar in China, thinks that the more accurate definition of supply chain should be: Supply chain (SC) is a functional network chain structure mode that connects suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and end users into a whole by controlling information flow, logistics and capital flow, starting from purchasing raw materials and finally through sales network. Supply chain describes the dynamic network of business entities (suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and customers) and activities (procurement, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and sales) and their relationships during the process of commodity demand to production and supply. The concept of supply chain focuses on the network chain relationship around the core enterprises. Every enterprise is a node in the supply chain, and there is a relationship between demand and supply among node enterprises. For core enterprises, supply chain is a network chain connecting their suppliers, suppliers, customers and end users. Enterprises start with transportation management, and then extend to warehousing, final product inventory, material handling, packaging, customer service, procurement and raw materials. In addition to capital flow, logistics and information flow, there are also value-added flows in the supply chain, and all kinds of resources flowing in the supply chain should be a process of continuous value-added. Therefore, the essence of supply chain is value-added chain.
For the complex system of supply chain, if we want to achieve good performance, we must find effective coordinated management methods, and the idea of supply chain management is put forward under this circumstance. APICS defines supply chain management: planning, organizing and controlling all supply chain activities. The definition put forward by the supply chain forum is that supply chain management is the integration of all key business processes from end users to initial suppliers to provide value-added products, services and information to customers and other investors.
Lambert and CooperandPagh believe that supply chain management is a key enterprise process integration, which integrates the process from end users to original suppliers and provides value-added products, services and information to customers and other investors. OSchary believes that supply chain management is a management mechanism to manage the product flow, service flow and consumption-related information of enterprises. Evens believes that supply chain management is to connect suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers through feedforward information flow and feedback logistics and information flow until the end. Philip thinks that supply chain management is not another name of supplier management, but a new management strategy, which integrates different enterprises to increase the efficiency of the whole supply chain and pays attention to the cooperation between enterprises. Xu Haohao, a scholar in China, and others believe that supply chain management is an overall mode management that connects suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and end users through feedforward information flow and feedback logistics and information flow, which is very different from the current enterprise management mode.
China's "logistics terminology" is defined as: using computer network technology to comprehensively plan the business flow, logistics, information flow and capital flow in the supply chain, and to plan, organize, coordinate and control them.
Although there are many different definitions of supply chain management, it is basically believed that the cooperation between internal and external enterprises is realized through planning and control. In essence, they all integrate supply chain and value-added chain to some extent.
In his book Supply Chain Management, Ma Shihua believes that supply chain management is to design, plan, control and optimize the logistics, information flow and capital flow in the supply chain from a systematic perspective, so as to minimize internal friction and waste, optimize the overall efficiency of the supply chain, ensure that members in the supply chain get corresponding performance and benefits, and thus quickly meet the needs of customers. Put the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price. The most fundamental purpose of supply chain management is to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises and improve customer satisfaction. It is an integrated management idea and method, which regards all enterprises in the supply chain as an inseparable whole, makes the functions of procurement, production, distribution and sales shared by all enterprises in the supply chain become a coordinated development organism, takes customer satisfaction as the goal, reforms and optimizes all links in the chain, and achieves sales growth, cost reduction and more effective utilization of investment while improving customer satisfaction, thus achieving comprehensive.