Realities

This growing interest to adopt the pattern of Chain of Supply owes herself primarily to two factors: the globalization of the markets and the technological development. The first one has originated a fierce world competition, with the proliferation of innovative products and with short cycles of life. The quality of the product, before a differentiation factor, is today a demand; the competition resides now in the readiness of the product in the place and the precise time. The access to new technologies of information, of communication and of transport they allow the development of methods and more efficient tools to synchronize the offer and the demand, coordinating the activities of suppliers, producers and distributors

The companys no longer competes as isolated and autonomous units. The supply chain is a sequence of processes (of products, information and money) that the limits of the company transcend. The traditional organization based on functional areas (marketing, production, finances) with independent operation strategies and acting measures and incentives for areas breaks into fragments the processes and their objectives. A soda can involves processes of at least 6 factory companys with 319 days of total process; an interruption in the supply of materials and information among anyone of them would have important repercussions in the rest of the chain. Traditionally the industry refrésquera solves the problem acquiring more containers of those required for its production cycle (high inventories) or being integrated vertically to produce its own can deviating Resources toward a business that is not his. The collaborative integration with suppliers, in an outline of shared earnings focused to generate flows of value along the chain, with global acting measures, provides a true competitive advantage.

The design of the product has important implications in the cost of the supply chain. It is said that 80% of the logistical cost comes from the transportation, the storage and the handling of the inventory of the product, completely sensitive aspects to its physical characteristics. Since a good part of this cost is determined from the design, should the process of development of a product involve to all the components of the supply chain in each one of its stages (investigation, does design, manufacture and launching) to assure the quick and successful introduction to the market, with the smallest total cost Only the product? A very attractive container (marketing objective) but difficult to bale and to stow, it can generate a high cost of handling, storage and transportation.

The society requires friendly products with the environment. Now we are in charge of of the Green Supply Chain, because the environmental problems are bound to the development of new products and their factory processes. The one recycled and I reuse of products and components it requires of an extended chain, with flows in reverse after the sale and of the consumption, giving place to the Closed Loop Supply Chain.

With the opening of the markets, suppliers, producers, distributors and consumers are located in different points of the globe. It is not the same thing to administer a chain of local supply that a global one. The distances, the times, the cultural differences, the frontier crossings generate additional difficulties. It is maybe in the Global Supply Chain where the technological development plays its best paper; allowing communications in real time and interconectividad in the systems one can still obtain integration and total visibility of the chain in very distant places and with different systems.

The outsourcing or tercerización (Third Party Logistics: 3PL) of certain activities like transportation and storage is another reality that many companys is incorporating in its strategy, leaving these activities at a third specialized to be focused in its own business and to reduce costs. The concept has evolved, now a 4PL (Fourth Party Logistics) it exercises the activity of planning and of coordination of the flow of information from suppliers until clients. It designs the logistical architecture and the system of information to integrate the processes without executing the physical flows that are confident at the 3PL.

But maybe the most visible reality is the quick development of the technologies of information, more and more accessible to the companys independently of its size. Any strategy guided to reduce costs, to reduce times of supply and to increase the level of service requires of the handling of a great quantity of data to generate reliable information and on time. The system of information plays an important paper in the taking of decisions, since before any change (from a simple improvement of an operative process until a reconfiguración of the supply chain) it is necessary to make a diagnosis of the current situation; but there is not diagnostic without information. On the other hand, the flow of information among suppliers, producers and clients is a critical factor in the efficient handling of the supply chain. The systems of electronic exchange of data (EDI), the Internet, the systems of product identification for radio frequency (RFID) and in particular the electronic trade certainly is changing the form to make business.

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