A supply chain is a complex system
that involves people, processes and technologies. The system
operates across multiple organizations that are not able to be
directly controlled. With all of these factors, how is it
possible to improve the system to stay competitive and to make
strategic gains?
To improve, a complex system needs to
be both consistent and flexible. Unfortunately, consistency
and flexibility cannot be added to a complex system. It must
be built-in at the lowest levels. An example of a complex
system that has advanced quickly because of flexibility and
consistency is the Internet.
The Internet is an
integral part of the business landscape. It provides a common
framework for collaboration between businesses across the
street and across the globe. Every day new applications are
being developed to take advantage of the Internet. Every day
more businesses are changing in an effort to gain an advantage
from these applications.
On the surface it would seem
that the Internet is only possible because of advances in
technology. However, the true power of the Internet can be
found at its core, a few simple concepts which provide the
flexibility and consistency that enabled the technology to
advance.
From the beginning the builders of the
Internet had many obstacles to overcome. Each organization had
a proprietary hardware and software. The infrastructure that
connected them was unreliable. There were no operating
standards or protocols.
It was clear that machines
could not interact successfully in this manner. The solution
was to add information and provide methods, flexible but
consistent standards, to react to the information at the most
basic level. Since each transmission, regardless of the data
being sent, would always carry the same concepts, the overall
system became more flexible and reliable. The problem was no
longer: ‘Is the data going to be there?’, but rather: ‘What
data are we going to send?’ With the data being transmitted
successfully it paved the way for applications such as email
and the World Wide Web.
It is fascinating how something
so powerful and so revolutionary can be so simple at the
foundation. A well defined business process, linked into a
synchronized but flexible supply chain becomes the foundation
all businesses, large or small, can deal with the unique
speed, cost, and quality challenges of the 21st century. Like
the internet, it’s not the software that made it what it is,
it’s the foundation.
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