INTRODUCTION

Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the flow of

goods and services and includes all processes that transform raw
materials into final products. It involves the active streamlining of a
business's supply-side activities to maximize customer value and gain a
competitive advantage in the marketplace. Supply Chain Management
represents an effort by suppliers to develop and implement supply chains
that are as efficient and economical as possible. Supply chains cover
everything from production to product development to the information
systems needed to direct these undertakings. Thus, Supply Chain
Management has been defined as the "design, planning, execution,
control, and monitoring of supply-chain activities with the objective of
creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging
worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring
performance globally ." SCM practice draws heavily from the areas of
industrial engineering, systems engineering, operations management,
logistics, procurement, information technology, and marketing and
strives for an integrated approach. Marketing channels play an important
role in Supply Chain Management. Current research in supply-chain
management is concerned with topics related to sustainability and risk
management among others. Some suggest that the people dimension of
SCM, ethical issues, internal integration, transparency/visibility , and
human capital/talent management are topics that have, so far, been
underrepresented on the research agenda.

EXAMPLES OF SCM:

Understanding the importance of SCM to its business, Walgreens Boots

Alliance Inc. placed focused effort on transforming its supply chain in
2016. The company operates one of the largest pharmacy chains in the
United States and needs to efficiently manage and revise its supply chain
so it stays ahead of the changing trends and continues to add value to its
bottom line.

As of July 5, 2016, Walgreens has invested in the technology portion of

its supply chain. It implemented a forward-looking SCM that
synthesizes relevant data and uses analytics to forecast customer
purchase behavior, and then it works its way back up the supply chain to
meet that expected demand. For example, the company can anticipate flu
patterns, which allow it to accurately forecast needed inventory for over-
the-counter flu remedies, creating an efficient supply chain with little
waste. Using this SCM, the company can reduce excess inventory and
all of the inventories' associated costs, such as the cost of warehousing
and transportation.
 OBJECTIVES OF SCM

Supply Chain Management consists of all parties (including

Manufacturer, Marketer, Supplier, Transporters, Warehouses, Retailers

and even Customers) directly or indirectly involved in fullfilment of a

Customer. The main objectives of Supply Chain Management are to

improve the overall Oraganization Performance and Customer

satisfaction by improving product or service delivery to Customers. The

below mentioned are the various objectives of Supply Chain

Management:

 WORKING TO CONFIRM POTENCY.

 OPTIMIZED TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLYING.

 WORKING ON QUALITY IMPROVEMENT.

 MAINTAINING LONG-RUN STABILITY.

 FLEXIBLE PLANNING AND CONTROL PROCEDURES.

 LITERATURE REVIEW

1. INTRODUCTION : In the current competitive scenario Supply Chain

Management assumes a significant importance and calls for serious

research attention, as companies are challenged with finding ways to
meet ever-rising customer expectations at a manageable cost. To do so,
businesses must search out which parts of their supply-chain process are
not competitive, understand which customer needs are not being met,
establish improvement goals, and rapidly implement necessary
improvements.

Traditionally, all encompassing philosophy of SCM embraces each of

these functions to produce an overall supply chain strategy that
ultimately enhances firm performance (Croom et al. 2000; Wisner and
Tan 2000). In actuality, the literature is still very fragmented and
although several studies purport to discuss supply chain issues, most of
the existing research only examines one link of the chain, or most
importantly only focuses on one ingredient in the supply chain
performance mix. Six major movements can be observed in the
evolution of supply chain management studies. Creation, Integration,
Globalization, Specialization Phases One and Two, and SCM 2.0
 ERA IN THE EVOLUTION OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

S. NO. ERA DESCRIPTION

1. Creation Era The term supply chain management was first coined
by an American industry consultant in the early
1980s. However the concept of supply chain in
management, was of great importance long before
in the early 20th century.
2. Integration Era This era of supply chain management studies was
highlighted with the development of Electronic
Data Interchange (EDI) systems in the 1960s and
developed through the 1990s by the introduction of
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
3. Globalization Era This era is characterized by the globalization of
supply chain management in organizations with the
goal of increasing competitive advantage, creating
more value-added, and reducing costs through
global sourcing.
4. Specialization Era In the 1990s industries began to focus on “core
Phase-1-Outsourced competencies” and adopted a specialization model.
Manufacturing and Companies abandoned vertical integration, sold off
Distribution non-core operations, and outsourced those functions
to other companies.
5. Specialization Era Specialization within the supply chain began in the
Phase - 2 - Supply 1980s with the inception of transportation
Chain Management brokerages, warehouse management, and non asset
as a Service based carriers and has matured beyond
transportation and logistics into aspects of supply
planning, collaboration, and performance
management.
6. Supply Chain Web 2. 0 is a trend in the use of the World Wide
Management 2. 0 Web i.e., to increase creativity, information sharing,
(SCM 2. 0) and collaboration among users.
2. LITERATURE SURVEY:

2.1. RESEARCHERS EXPLANATION ON SCM:

SCM has been interpreted by various researchers. Based on the

relatively recent development of the supply chain literature, it is not
surprising that there has been much debate as to a specific SCM
definition.

 SCOTT & WESTBROOK (1991) stated supply chain is used to

refer to the chain linking each element of the process from, raw
materials through to the end customer

 CAVINATO (1992) has defined that the supply chain concept

consists of actively managed channels of procurement and
distribution. It is the group of firms that add value along product
flow from original raw materials to final customer.

 GANESHAN AND HARRISON (1995) has defined SCM as a

network of facilities and distribution options that performs the
functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these
materials into intermediate and finished products, and the
distribution of these finished products to customers.

 CHRISTOPHER (1998) defined the supply chain as the network of

organizations that are involved, through upstream and downstream
linkages, in the different processes and activities that produce
value in the form of products and services in the hands of the
ultimate customer.

 MENTZER ET AL.(2001) stated that “The systemic, strategic

coordination of the traditional business functions and the tactics
 across these business functions within a particular company and
across businesses within the supply chain, for the purposes of
improving the long-term performance of the individual companies
and the supply chain as a whole.”

Thus, ultimately the definition of supply chain and supply chain

management can be depicted as “supply chain is the stream of
processes of moving goods from the customer order through the
raw materials stage, supply, production, and distribution of
products to the customer. All firms have supply chains of varying
degrees, depending upon the size of the organization and the type
of product manufactured. These networks obtain supplies and
components, change these materials into finished products and
then distribute them to the customer. Managing the chain of events
in this process is what is known as supply chain management.
Effective management must take into account coordinating all the
different pieces of this chain as quickly as possible without losing
any of the quality or customer satisfaction, while still keeping costs
down”.

2.2. ARTICLES & JOURNALS RELATED TO THE CONCEPT OF

SCM:

Numerous articles dealing with the theory and practice of SCM have
been published over the reviewed period of last 18 years, but the topic
is still under considerable development and debate.

Richard Lamming (1996) has given a general review on lean supply

chain in which Lean supply has been characterized as “beyond
partnership”. Lean supply is the system of purchasing and supply chain
management required to underpin lean production. Ben-Daya et al.
(2008) explored the topic in a particular context, i.e. The industrial
district (ID), that constitutes a specific production model where complex
SC networks can be identified. SC cooperation may take on several
forms in IDs and may produce several benefits (e. g. Upgrading quality
and reducing costs).

Vaart and Pieter (2003) drawn conclusions on the need for an inter-
disciplinary approach, combining the technical and relational aspects
from the respective fields of system dynamics and collaboration in order
to deliver superior order replenishment performance. Gunasekaran and
Ngai (2005) indicated that E-Business, product, and service-quality, all
have a significant direct effect on customer behavioral intentions to
purchase again. Balakrishnan and Cheng (2005) reviewed and update
the methodology based on spreadsheet that provided enhanced solutions
in complex environments with multiple products and bottleneck
situations. Nagarajan and Sosic (2004) reviewed literature dealing with
buyer vendor coordination models that have used quantity discount as
coordination mechanism under deterministic environment and classified
the various models. Based on this conceptualization of SCM, the
existing literature was examined, in an effort to identify the extent to
which these underlying elements were present in SCM academic
research to date.

Burgess et.al. (2006) reviewed 100 randomly selected articles from

614 usable articles found in the ABI/Inform Database across a 19 year
(1985 to 2003) period.. Their sample addressed manufacturing and
consumer goods industries, and the research articles reviewed by them
focused on a more narrowly defined operations management approach to
Supply Chain Management. They classified the articles into four
groups, namely

(1) Descriptive features of SCM,

(2) Definition issues,

(3) Theoretical concerns and

(4) Research methodological issues.

They found SCM to be a relatively young field with exponential growth

in interest from researchers in the recent past. The importance of this
research in contrast to Burgess et al. (2006) is that this not only makes
for a more in-depth review, but provides a larger base from which to
chart the maturation of the SCM field. It also helps to assess gaps in the
literature and project future trends, thereby underscoring the importance
and robustness of this study. Finally, Burgess et al., include books,
manuscripts and conference proceedings while this research focuses
solely on published articles in peer reviewed SCM journals.

Carter and Ellram (2003) surveyed the articles published in the Journal
of Supply Chain Management for the total period of 35 years since its
launching i.e. for 1965 to 1999. Their objective was to offer a greater
understanding of the evolution of purchasing and supply research over
the first 35 years of the Journal of Supply Chain’s existence, and to
provide guidance and prescriptions for future supply management
research. They observed that nearly 90% of the journal articles under
study consisted of normative literature, methodology reviews, and
exploratory studies. They further noted that the use of hypothesis testing
had increased significantly over the past 10 years of their review
(1989-1999), yet they consider that a greater use of hypothesis testing
and the scientific method is recommended as the Supply Management
discipline continued to mature. Carter & Ellram (2003) further
recommended more literature reviews leading to the introduction of
theoretical frameworks of supply management, and the use of more
sophisticated research modeling techniques such as MANOVA/
discriminant analysis and inferential statistical techniques. They
classified the articles based on a modification of the categories used by
ISM, and proposed 32 categories for clear and unambiguous
classification, which has proved to be a milestone and has been used in
subsequent literature reviews by several researchers. The authors
conclude that purchasing and supply management, as a scientific
discipline, is maturing. It is interesting to note that the authors have
consistently used the terms ‘purchasing’ and ‘supply’ management,
which speaks a lot about the stage of development of the discipline of
‘Supply Chain Management’ till 1999.

Croom et al. (2000) analyze 84 studies on SCM in terms of level of

analysis and research methodologies, but the time period for their data
collection is ambiguous. Their study represents an early attempt to
categorize the SCM literature. Significant growth has taken place both
in the practice and theory of Supply chain Management since this
attempt, making it necessary for reviews of current knowledge and
literature. Finally they describe and categorize the research methods
into two dimensions: theoretical and empirical and do not provide the
number of articles associated with each level of analysis.

Rungtusanatham et.al. (2003) carried out a comprehensive review of 285

SCM articles published in 6 operations management journals during a
period of 21 years from 1980-2000. They noticed the occurrence of
major changes in the last 5 years of their sampling period, and that two
topics stood out as showing fastest ascendancy to prominenceoperations
strategy and supply chain management. They observed that the SCM
related articles increased significantly after the first half of 1990s,
thereby implying the increased interest of researchers in this field and
accelerated growth of this discipline. It shows that SCM is a booming
and growing field, and offers plenty opportunities in research.

Giunipero et.al. (2008) in a recent literature review of a decade of SCM

literature note that the literature, in reality, is still very fragmented and
although several studies purport to discuss supply chain issues, most of
the existing research only examines one link of the chain, or more
importantly only focuses on one ingredient in the supply chain
performance mix. They pointed out that the SCM literature reviewed by
them revealed several gaps identified by them as

(1) Small sample sizes

(2) One-tier investigations

(3) Limited methodological analysis

(4)Lack of longitudinal studies, and

(5) Limited global supply chain analysis.

In view of this discussion, the authors conclude that a broader view of

SCM is needed in order to develop a wider consensus and resolve the
present conceptual and research methodological confusion. In contrast
to single journal review, or limited random review, this research surveys
thirteen academic journals and reviews 588 research-based articles
published during an 18-year period from 1991 to mid 2008, thereby
covering the entire significant period of SCM emergence to its evolution
as a strong discipline. The authors these articles in terms of research
method, and data analysis techniques to discover the extent of research
trend.

In summary, this research extends the previous literature reviews by:

• Specifically focusing on multi facet SCM work in scholarly journals,

• Reviewing the period of years period during which SCM grew as a

discipline and academic research in this field gained importance and
increased significantly.
• Providing an investigation of the research methods and data analysis,
using an established subject categorization scheme and reviewing
publication and providing insight in to the research methods and data
analysis method used in current literature.