Introduction: Observations on Supply-Chain Management

Author(s): Yasemin Aksoy

Source: Interfaces, Vol. 30, No. 4, Supply-Chain Management (Jul. - Aug., 2000), pp. 1-2
Published by: INFORMS
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25062615
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Introduction: Observations on Supply-Chain

Management

issue,and
a firm's
ability to
As notedthisbyspecial
Ramdas
Spekman
in

its invention of Post-it Notes, 3M serves

several major markets with over 60,000

manage its supply chain is a major source products. Lockamy, Beal, and Smith de
of competitive advantage. This realization scribe 3M's supply-chain-excellence initia
is the single most important reason for the tive. Supply-chain directors have been re
recent emphasis on supply-chain manage sponsible for improvements in their
groups. About half the divisions have as
ment in industry and academia.
This special issue on supply-chain man

signed supply-chain managers to the task.

agement starts with answers to some im

The goals of the supply-chain-excellence

portant strategic questions. How can we

evaluate supply-chain performance? Do

company's service promises on time, (2)

firms differ in their supply-chain practices

improving customer satisfaction and loy

initiative have been (1) meeting all of the

and thinking because of the nature of their alty, (3) doubling the speed of current

products? Ramdas and Spekman tackle

these questions and present interesting
findings. They also provide guidelines for

developing analytical models and

decision-support systems for supply-chain

management based on a descriptive em

pirical model that includes both behav
ioral and quantitative measures of
performance.
Our observations on supply-chain man
agement continue with applications in dif

business processes, and (4) reducing total

delivered cost.

Hyundai Motor Company has a unique

supply chain in the automotive industry.

Hahn, Duplaga, and Hartley discuss

Hyundai's supply chain and focus on its
coordination of supply-chain activities in

planning production. To manage the con

flicting goals of increasing product variety,

reducing delivery lead times, and reduc

ing costs, Hyundai formed a centralized
ferent industries, including manufacturing production and sales-control department
to mediate conflicts among the manufac
(3M), automotive (Hyundai Motor Com
pany, Korea; Volkswagen of America),
turing, domestic and export sales, and do
health care (Hancock Medical Center, Mis mestic and foreign purchasing depart
ments. This centralized control unit has
sissippi), and semiconductor (Xilinx, Inc.),

and in academia (Eindhoven University of

Technology, The Netherlands).
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company (3M) aims to be one of the most

proved effective in synchronizing sales re

quirements and capacity, balancing re

quests from domestic and export sales de
partments, coordinating new product

innovative enterprises in the world and

introduction or part changes, and synchro

the preferred supplier in all the markets it

nizing order launching and delivery.

serves. While it is recognized largely for

Copyright ? 2000 INFORMS

Volkswagen of America distributes its

PROFESSIONAL?COMMENTS ON

0092-2102/00/3004/0001 /$05.00
1526-551X electronic ISSN

INTERFACES 30: 4 July-August 2000 (pp. 1-2)

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INTRODUCTION
vehicles to about 750 dealers in the US af
ter their assembly in Mexico and Ger

many. Karabakal, G?nal, and Ritchie de

scribe a model that combines simulation
and optimization iteratively to improve

Volkswagen's vehicle distribution under

Eindhoven University of Technology

has solved the problem of providing stu
dents with the knowledge and skills they
need to improve operations across organi

zations in a well-designed, hands-on man

ner. Wouters and van Donselaar describe

three major criteria: to maximize the per

a project in which 15 master's students

centage of customers receiving their first

worked full time for a year in selected

choices, to ensure delivery of customers'

first choices within 48 hours, and to re

companies within the supply chains of the

transportation, financing, and storage.

electrical-installation and pharmaceutical

industries. By directly involving manufac
turers, wholesalers, and installers or phar
macists, this project broke away from the

management department receives, stores,

management in a university. Working in

duce the total system costs (Volkswagen of

America and its dealers) associated with

Hancock Medical Center's materials

and distributes medical supplies to four

major segments within the medical center.
Jayaraman, Burnett, and Frank used a

binary ordering algorithm and item com

monality approach to streamline and
separate inventory flows within the de

traditional ways of teaching operations

teams, students in different companies

helped streamline and better coordinate

processes among those companies. The

companies provided excellent learning en

vironments for the students. They also
publicly praised the project for its contri

butions to improved deliveries and im

partment. They report that their recom
mendations have resulted in better utiliza proved relationships across the supply
tion of the staff in the day-to-day activities

of the department. More important, the

lead times for distributing medical sup
plies to different segments within the cen
ter have greatly improved.
Xilinx, Inc. is one of the first semicon

chain.

The signature of supply-chain manage

ment is integration. As the papers in this

special issue suggest, effective supply

chain members invariably integrate the

wishes and concerns of their downstream

ductor companies to use a virtual business members into their operations while si
multaneously ensuring integration with
model by outsourcing its logistics, sales,
distribution, and almost all manufactur
their upstream members.

Yasemin Aksoy

ing. What it keeps in house is design, mar

keting, engineering, customer service, de

mand management, and supply-chain

management. Brown, Lee, and Petrakian
describe the company's supply chain and

A.B. Freeman School of Business

Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
yasemin.aksoy@tulane.edu

report on its applications of product- and

process-postponement strategies. These

strategies allow for easy customization
and speedy delivery times.

INTERFACES 30:4 2
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