Management of Production and Operations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Management of Production and Operations - Essay Example The idea of having a supply chain within management became of immense importance in the beginning of the 20th century, when assembly lines were created. However it was not until the 1980s that the phrase SCM was by a consultant in the U.S. industry coined. The characteristics of the creation era of SCM include the need for re-engineering, large-scale changes, downsizing and extensive attention accorded to the practice of management by the Japanese (Lavassani et al., 2008b). The Integration era of SCM studies was brought around by Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems developments which occurred from the 1960s-1990s due to the launching of the Enterprise Resource Planning systems (Lavassani et al., 2008b). Given the advancement in collaborative systems that is internet based, the Integration era has continued to develop. It is characterized not only by cost reduction using integration but by the increase in value addition as well. Globalization era is the third movement of SCM development. The attention accorded to global systems dealing with supplier relationships and the getting bigger of organizations’ supply chains across national boundaries into other continents is what characterizes this era. The supply chain of organizations, especially those organizations in the oil industry, started using global sources several decades ago. However it was not until the late 1980s that global sources were integrated into the core businesses of considerable numbers of organizations according to Lavassani et al. (2008b). The globalization of SCM in organizations with the aim of boosting their value addition, competitive advantage and cost reduction through global sourcing is what characterizes the globalization era. Phase one of the specialization era revolves around Outsourced Manufacturing and Distribution (OMD). Adoption of a specialization era and renewed focus on core