A brief history of supply chain management

Supply chain management cuts across traditional business functions such as research and development, manufacturing and marketing. It deals with the interfaces between them and focuses on the design and management of a system that directs and controls the flows of materials into, through and out of a firm across national boundaries to achieve its corporate objectives at a minimum total cost. This chapter provides a historical overview of how supply chain management developed from the original concept of marketing, addressing the interfaces between these business functions. The chapter then discusses the scope of global supply chain management- consisting of upstream activities (i.e., materials procurement and sourcing) and downstream activities (i.e., physical distribution)- as a “throughput” (i.e., the movement of materials and other inputs through production and physical distribution of products to the final customer), managed on a global basis.