What Does a Supply Chain Include?-A Complete Guide

The supply chain mechanism related to product and demand information flow is possible only because of the inclusion of a set of specific business processes. These business processes are integrated with each other.

Let's watch the next video to learn what these business processes are and how to integrate these processes within a supply chain.

As you learnt in the video above, the different business processes of a typical and effective supply chain are always integrated. This integration occurs through the following set of interdependent processes:

• Facility network

• Material handling equipment (MHE)

• Transportation

• Inventory

• Order management

The single biggest advantage of the integration of these processes is the continuous interaction between them which ensures that the integrated supply chain is capable of managing all the performance parameters.

Now that you have understood the business processes integrated into a supply chain, let's understand how these processes flow across different touchpoints within the supply chain.

As you learnt in the video above, a typical supply chain consists of certain touchpoints, which are as follows:

1. Supplier 

2. Factory

3. Customer

You also analysed how to arrange different business processes along the three touchpoints of a supply chain with the help of the example of Apple Inc.

Over the past many years, supply chain strategy has evolved a lot and organisations are finding new ways to differentiate themselves and succeed through their supply chains. You will learn about this in the next segment.