供应链管理的概述外文翻译.docx

1、供应链管理的概述外文翻译外文翻译原文HTTP OverviewMaterial Source: Author:steve souders1.What is supply chain management?Supply chain management is the combination of art and science that goes into improving the way your company finds the raw components it needs to make a product or service, manufactures that product

2、or service and delivers it to customers. The following are five basic components for supply chain management. 1. Plan-This is the strategic portion of supply chain management. You need a strategy for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for your product or service. A big

3、 piece of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, costs less and delivers high quality and value to customers.2. Source-Choose the suppliers that will deliver the goods and services you need to create your product or service. Develop a set of pric

4、ing, delivery and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving the relationships. And put together processes for managing the inventory of goods and services you receive from suppliers, including receiving shipments, verifying them, transferring them to your manuf

5、acturing facilities and authorizing supplier payments.3. Make-This is the manufacturing step. Schedule the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging and preparation for delivery. As the most metric-intensive portion of the supply chain, measure quality levels, production output and wor

6、ker productivity.4. Deliver-This is the part that many insiders refer to as logistics. Coordinate the receipt of orders from customers, develop a network of warehouses, pick carriers to get products to customers and set up an invoicing system to receive payments.5. Return-The problem part of the sup

7、ply chain. Create a network for receiving defective and excess products back from customers and supporting customers who have problems with delivered products.For a more detailed outline of these steps, check out the nonprofit Supply- CChain Councils website at www.supply-chain.org. 2.What does supp

8、ly chain management software do?Supply chain management software is possibly the most fractured group of software applications on the planet. Each of the five major supply chain steps previously outlined composes dozens of specific tasks, many of which have their own specific software. There are som

9、e large vendors that have attempted to assemble many of these different chunks of software together under a single roof, but no one has a complete package. Integrating the different software pieces together can be a nightmare. Perhaps the best way to think about supply chain software is to separate

10、it into software that helps you plan the supply chain and software that helps you execute the supply chain steps themselves.Supply chain planning (SCP) software uses fancy math algorithms to help you improve the flow and efficiency of the supply chain and reduce inventory. SCP is entirely dependent

11、upon information for its accuracy. If youre a manufacturer of consumer packaged goods for example, dont expect your planning applications to be very accurate if you cant feed them accurate, up-to-date information about customer orders from your retail customers, sales data from your retailer custome

12、rs stores, manufacturing capacity and delivery capability. There are planning applications available for all five of the major supply chain steps previously listed. Arguably the most valuable (and complex and prone to error) is demand planning, which determines how much product you will make to sati

13、sfy your different customers demands. Supply chain execution (SCE) software is intended to automate the different steps of the supply chain. This could be as simple as electronically routing orders from your manufacturing plants to your suppliers for the stuff you need to make your products. For an

14、expanded overview of this topic, read the Supply Chain Executive Summary. 3.Do I need to have ERP software before I install supply chain software?This is a very controversial subject. You may need ERP if you plan to install SCP applications because they are reliant upon the kind of information that

15、is stored in the most quantity inside ERP software. Theoretically you could assemble the information you need to feed the SCP applications from legacy systems (for most companies this means Excel spreadsheets spread out all over the place), but it can be nightmarish to try to get that information fl

16、owing on a fast, reliable basis from all the areas of the company. ERP is the battering ram that integrates all that information together in a single application, and SCP applications benefit from having a single major source to go to for up-to-date information. Most CIOs who have tried to install S

17、CP applications say they are glad they did ERP first. They call the ERP projects putting your information house in order. Of course, ERP is expensive and difficult, so you may want to explore ways to feed your SCP applications the information they need without doing ERP first.SCE applications are le

18、ss dependent upon gathering information from around the company, so they tend to be independent of the ERP decision. But chances are, youll need to have the SCE applications communicate with ERP in some fashion. Its important to pay attention to SCE softwares ability to integrate with the Internet a

19、nd with ERP or SCP applications because the Internet will drive demand for integrated information. For example, if you want to build a private website for communicating with your customers and suppliers, you will want to pull information from SCE, SCP and ERP applications together to present updated

20、 information about orders, payments, manufacturing status and delivery.4.What is the goal of installing supply chain management software?Before the Internet came along, the aspirations of supply chain software devotees were limited to improving their ability to predict demand from customers and make

21、 their own supply chains run more smoothly. But the cheap, ubiquitous nature of the Internet, along with its simple, universally accepted communication standards have thrown things wide open. Now, theoretically anyway, you can connect your supply chain with the supply chains of your suppliers and cu

22、stomers together in a single vast network that optimizes costs and opportunities for everyone involved. This was the reason for the B2B explosion; the idea that everyone you do business with could be connected together into one big happy, cooperative family.Of course, the reality behind this vision

23、is that it will take years to come to fruition. But considering that B2B has only been around for a few years, some industries have already made great progress, most notably consumer-packaged goods (the companies that make products that go to supermarkets and drug stores), high technology and autos.

24、When you ask the people on the front lines in these industries what they hope to gain from their supply chain efforts in the near term, they will all respond with a single word: visibility. The supply chain in most industries is like a big card game. The players dont want to show their cards because

25、 they dont trust anyone else with the information. But if they showed their hands they could all benefit. Suppliers wouldnt have to guess how much raw materials to order, and manufacturers wouldnt have to order more than they need from suppliers to make sure they have enough on hand if demand for th

26、eir products unexpectedly goes up. And retailers would have fewer empty shelves if they shared the information they had about sales of a manufacturers product in all their stores with the manufacturer. The Internet makes showing your hand to others possible, but centuries of distrust and lack of coo

27、rdination within industries make it difficult. 5.What is supply chain collaboration?Lets look at consumer packaged goods as an example of collaboration. If there are two companies that have made supply chain a household word, they are Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble. Before these two companies started

28、 collaborating back in the 80s, retailers shared very little information with manufacturers. But then the two giants built a software system that hooked P&G up to Wal-Marts distribution centers. When P&Gs products run low at the distribution centers, the system sends an automatic alert to P&G to shi

29、p more products. In some cases, the system goes all the way to the individual Wal-Mart store. It lets P&G monitor the shelves through real-time satellite link-ups that send messages to the factory whenever a P&G item swoops past a scanner at the register.With this kind of minute-to-minute informatio

30、n, P&G knows when to make, ship and display more products at the Wal-Mart stores. No need to keep products piled up in warehouses awaiting Wal-Marts call. Invoicing and payments happen automatically too. The system saves P&G so much in time, reduced inventory and lower order-processing costs that it

31、 can afford to give Wal-Mart low, everyday prices without putting itself out of business.Cisco Systems, which makes equipment to hook up to the Internet, is also famous for its supply chain collaboration. Cisco has a network of component suppliers, distributors and contract manufacturers that are li

32、nked through Ciscos extranet to form a virtual, just-in-time supply chain. When a customer orders a typical Cisco product-for example, a router that directs Internet traffic over a company network-through Ciscos website, the order triggers a flurry of messages to contract manufacturers of printed circuit board assemblies. Distributors, meanwhile, are alerted to supply the generic components of the router, such as a power supply. Ciscos contract manufacturers, some of whom make subassemblies like the router chassis and others who assemble the finished product, already know whats comin