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Optimising Business Organization's Supply Chain With Open Source Base ...

The demands of today's fast paced business environment make change a constant rather than a variable. Pricing, components, innovations, features, deliveries, consumer demands and expectations are the problems as well as solutions that supply chains exist to solve and represent the means via which companies stay in business. Even the one person operation utilizes a supply chain. It is that individual meeting deadlines and having the necessary supplies, components and other things on hand to enable him to accomplish this. As the complexity of a business increases, so does the demands in keeping it supplied as well as meeting deliveries.

The foregoing is the context that will be examined in this exercise and how the utilization of a Linux based open source foundation can or does optimize the operation and efficiency of an organization's supply chain.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

To summarize, a supply chain represents the varied stages entailing the fulfillment of the orders and or requests from customers (Howard University School of Business, 2005). The elements in the chain consist of manufacturers, transporters, suppliers, retailers, warehouses as well as customer service. The business sector a company is in has a bearing on the components constituting the particular type of supply chain employed. As an example, the supply chain of a manufacturing company might be comprised of the aspects entailing the development of a new product, operations, marketing, finance, and distribution along with customer service (Howard University School of Business, 2005).

The supply chain represents the supply network along with logistics that coordinates the varied activities, information as well as resources that moves a service and or product from the supplying entity to the customer. The entities in the preceding represent the conversion of raw materials and or varied components into completed or finished products and or services. The key purpose and objective of the supply chain is the fulfillment of customer demands via the most effective and efficient resource utilization (Bock, 2001).

As is the case with most business systems, processes, associations, alliances, agreements and working relationships, the element of trust and confidence are variables that aid and support the associations made. And, the foregoing is true in the instance of supply chains as well. The preceding is illustrated through what are termed supply chain risks (Christopher et al, 2001).

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