SCRC Articles Library: SCM Hot Topics
SCM Hot Topics Articles
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The Supply Chain IT Investment Enigma: Companies are Rethinking IT Investments
After a period of significant downsizing and reduction in IT, supply chain executives need to re-think their IT investment strategies, particularly given the dominance of the Web, social media and…
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A Quick Primer on BPM: Business Process Management
The concept of business process management (BPM for short) has been around for a number of years now, but just what does it entail? What are the major activities and…
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The Transportation Crunch
Related site link: A Brief History of the Highway Transportation System in the U.S. The transportation infrastructure is exploding. This was the subject of debate at the Consumer Healthcare Products…
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Strategic Purchasing: Lessons for Purchasing Managers - Part 5
PART 1: Introducing New Research on Relational Rents PART 2: Strategic Purchasing and Supply Management Practices PART 3: The Nature of Strategic Purchasing PART 4: Supplier Relationship Performance Outcomes PART…
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Digital Business Transformation [DBT): The Journey Must Begin Now -Part 3
True supply chain excellence will only come from making a digital business transformation [DBT]. It's a transformation that exploits all that technology has to offer, facilitates supply chain collaboration, and leads to new levels of operational excellence. More than a one-time project, the transformation is a journey, and the time to start that journey is now.
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In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina: The Recovery Lag - Part 2
In the previous article, we discussed the need to quickly respond to a disruption, and the need to move quickly. The response by the National Guard and the federal and…
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In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned through the Lens of Supply Chain Disruptions - Pa
As we read daily about the death toll and destruction in New Orleans and Biloxi, the same questions echo through everyone’s mind: How did we let this happen? Why wasn’t…
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Logistics in China (DELIVER) - China Series Part 5
The majority of the growth that has occurred in China is in the Pearl River Delta. Transformed from a rural backwater into the world’s workshop through Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms…
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Manufacturing in China (MAKE) - China Series Part 4
When selecting a supplier / partner in China, it is critical to be aware of the working and economic conditions. None is more important then an understanding of the labor…
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Identifying and Negotiating with Chinese Suppliers (SOURCE) - China Series Part 3
An interview with a US expert who worked closely with Chinese business people for many years reveals the unexpected difficulties that may exist when attempting to negotiate and establish a…
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Planning and Control Systems in China (PLAN) - China Part 2
Planning is one of the most important, yet one of the most high risk areas of growth in China. One of the biggest challenges for Chinese companies is capacity planning.…
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Global Sourcing from China: Insights from a Recent Visit - China Part 1
Not so long ago, a strong American market nationalism and anti-communist sentiment made it socially sensitive for US companies to purchase goods from China. These days, purchasing Chinese goods may…
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Supply Planning - Federal Express and Tires
Tires. Let’s face it – they are everywhere. Tires are one of the biggest eyesores at many major projects. One energy company buys them new from two suppliers, who are…
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Driving Logistics Change in the Pharmaceutical Industry
A number of challenges continue to exist in the pharmaceutical industry. These challenges were discussed by a senior pharmaceutical executive recently. Little Incentive for Reducing Inventory First, pharma must continue…
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The Challenges of Partnerships
In today’s global supply chain environment, working to create mutual benefit among partners is a key element for success. Cross-functional teams must work together to align business strategies. Teams are…
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The Critical Role of the Cross-Functional Team
A cross-functional team (XFT) is generally created by a business unit Executive Vice President – who assigns professionals to participate. A XFT is formed in response to a very specific…
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Establishing a Foundation for Supply Chain Success in the Field
Management of supply chains is a key element for enterprise success by ensuring that your company achieves a sustainable competitive advantage. A framework has been developed which represents the building…
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Getting your arms around your spend
An area of increasing importance by different companies is the need to establish a clear picture of their spend analysis. The “as-is” assessment is three-fold. First, a local spend analysis…
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Collaboration in the Energy Industry: A Case Study of Suncor Energy
A successful exploration and development drilling program requires strong performance from a multi-disciplinary team as well as active participation and support from many suppliers and contractors. The Suncor Foothills Drilling-Asset…
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The Evolving World of E-Sourcing
A recent white paper by the Gartner Group provides an assessment of e-procurement and strategic sourcing software providers. The authors of this article note that “Strategic sourcing applications have traditionally…
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Ethics and Supply Management in a Global Environment
Many executives I speak with today discuss the challenges associated with global sourcing, particularly in areas where customs and ethical issues differ. One story related to me recently by an…
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Supply Market Intelligence: The Key to Strategic Sourcing
“In the Tom Cruise film, Minority Report, the Department of Crime Prevention collected data in various fashions about crimes and murders that were going to happen. They pieced this together,…
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The Role of Organizational Design
More organizations are seeking new approaches to compete through a competitive supply chain strategy. Many of these strategies involve the following elements: Development of a centrally led supply chain organization…
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Conflict of Interest – A Hot Topic!
With the increased focus on ethical behavior, more and more companies are examining their conflict of interest policies, especially as they relate to procurement. When an individual is hired by…
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Managing Complexity in the Supply Chain: Motorola’s War on Supply Chain Complexity - Part 2
In the last column, I shared an example of how Motorola is reducing complexity in their supply chain. This initiative was started by Theresa Metty, senior VP of procurement at…
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The Key Ingredient For Success: Competent People
One of the most important drivers for success in deploying supply chain initiatives today is people. A high priority for supply chain executives is to understand what the key skills…
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Managing Complexity in the Supply Chain - Part I
I recently sat on a panel of supply chain executives in Las Vegas, at the Better Management Live! Meeting sponsored by SAS. The theme of this panel was to have…
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The Key Ingredient For Success: Competent People
One of the most important drivers for success in deploying supply chain initiatives today is people. A high priority for supply chain executives is to understand what the key skills…
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Aligning Demand and Supply Management
Supply chain managers are increasingly being relied on to deliver greater returns to shareholders – and are also being held responsible for “supply chain glitches” that negatively impact a company’s…
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Leading Change in Supply Chain Management
Any company that has undertaken the mission of implementing an integrated supply chain management strategy knows that one of the greatest challenges it faces is the significant change in internal…
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Want to Improve Your Supply Chain Performance? Start with Your Suppliers!
Companies now know that suppliers of critical goods and services can provide major competitive benefits, in the form of lower costs, improved quality, on-time delivery, technological innovation, and customer service.…
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Lean Implementation Is Tough!
Lean Business Solutions publishes free e-newsletter discussing applications of lean thinking in the workplace. Recently a reader by the name of Marty Laurent who has a lot of experience in…
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Do Organizations Consider Strategic Cost Management When They Outsource To China?
In today’s economy, the driving force behind global competition can be summarized in a single equation: Value = (Quality + Technology + Service + Cycle Time) / Price At the…
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Leading Change in Supply Chain Management
Any company that has undertaken the mission of implementing an integrated supply chain management strategy knows that one of the greatest challenges it faces is the significant change in internal…
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Managing Maverick Spend at Deere and Delphi - An Interview with Jon Stegner
Many managers today are struggling on how to turn their procurement organization around and reduce their maverick spend (spending outside the procurement process), different approaches are being adopted. Jon Stegner,…
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Lean Implementation Is Tough!
Lean Business Solutions publishes free e-newsletter discussing applications of lean thinking in the workplace. Recently a reader by the name of Marty Laurent who has a lot of experience in…
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The RFID Power Play
In June 2003, Wal-Mart gave the edict that its top 100 suppliers would need to tag pallets and cases with RFID chips by January 2005. The deadline is now 2006…
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Driving Change in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Getting Started - Part 2
A number of other interesting elements came up in recent discussions I have had with pharmaceutical executives. The challenges discussed in the earlier version of this article must be met…
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Managing Maverick Spend at Deere and Delphi - An Interview with Jon Stegner
Many managers today are struggling with how to turn their procurement organization around and reduce their maverick spend (spending outside the procurement process); different approaches are being adopted. Jon Stegner,…
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Driving Change in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Logistics - Part I
I recently sat on a panel with a number of other pharmaceutical executives, discussing some of the challenges facing this industry. A number of interesting discussions came up. Little Incentive…
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Trust in Supply Chain Managment: Can You Trust Big Customers? - Part III
**Continuing with our last piece, we will discuss the different elements of trust and how they play out in supply chain relationships. Power One of the greatest deterrents to trust…
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The RFID Power Play
In June 2003, Wal-Mart gave the edict that its top 100 suppliers would need to tag pallets and cases with RFID chips by January 2005. The deadline is now 2006…
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Overview of the December 2003 SCRC Meeting
The SCRC meeting held last week on Thursday and Friday was a great success. A number of executives from different companies attended, and provided great feedback to the faculty and…
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Trust in Supply Chain Relationships: Faith in the Moral Integrity of Others - Part II
Continuing from our last piece, we will discuss the different elements of trust and how they play out in supply chain relationships. Competence Competence is one’s perception of the ability…
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Trust in Supply Chain Relationships: What Does It Mean to Trust? - Part I
One of the most misunderstood and ripe areas for research in the area of supply chain relationships is in the area of trust. Trust (and its cousin, Collaboration) seems to…
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Can You Trust the Trust in Supply Chain Relationships?
One of the most misunderstood and ripe areas for development in the area of supply chain relationships is in the area of trust. Trust (and its cousin, Collaboration) seems to…
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E-Procurement and the Purchasing Process
Many organizations are beginning to re-evaluate their purchasing processes, and identify new types of e-procurement tools that will meet their needs. This summer, Karl Mundt and Mark Benson have been…
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Have You Spoken to Your CFO about SCM Recently?
Many managers I speak with often complain about the problems associated with convincing CFO’s of the importance of SCM initiatives. Recent research, however, suggests that this is about to change.…
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Managing Supply Chain Relationships
As we begin the new year, many companies are standing back and re-evaluating the health of their supply chains. In this column, we continue with the eight-part series on transforming…
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China: The Next Frontier for Supply Chain Management
An academic colleague of mine who teaches at the China-Europe International University in Shanghai, Professor Linda Sprague, has been living in China and teaching university in Beijing for the last…
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Is Your Procurement Organization Ready for Outsourcing?
It is notable that the success of an outsourced project is not only dependent on technological capability, but is more dependent on the service organization to effectively communicate with its…
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Measuring the Maturity of Procurement Practices
Many companies today are deploying a myriad of procurement strategies, including: Applying reverse auctions to all commodities Apply strategic alliances with all commodities Outsourcing of key business processes Leveraging and…
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A New Governance Role for Purchasing
I was recently asked by a team of people from one of our partner companies the following question: We are moving to a governance role from a service role, with…
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Managing Alliances in the EPC Industry
In the engineering project and construction industry, a different market environment exists from many other industries. EPC’s are responsible for designing, constructing, and managing all issues associated with major projects,…
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Capturing Savings of Alliances in the Energy Sector
Energy sector capital projects typically cost hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars to construct. A major component of these projects is the engineered equipment that the facility is…
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Problems Facing the New Pharmaceutical Industry - Part 2
No one would disagree that new products are the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Almost every company in this sector is focused on developing new products, grow revenues,…
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So You Want to Involve Suppliers in New Product Development?
Congratulations! You’ve reengineered your product development process and manufacturing’s inputs are finally integrated early enough to make a difference. Quality is up and products are launching faster. But that doesn’t…
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Problems Facing the New Pharmaceutical Industry - Part I
As the 21st century begins, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has entered an era of explosive growth in innovation, investment and competition. At the same time, both established players and…
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Aligning Supply and Demand Management: Meeting summary
Thank you again for coming to the Supply Chain Resource Consortium meeting on May 1-2, 2003. Those who attended hopefully learned a lot from the industry speakers and student projects.…
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Rebuilding Iraq - Challenges to the EPC Industry
Recently, Bechtel Corporation was awarded a major contract to repair roads, hospitals, schools, and other foundational elements in post-war Iraq. Although critics claimed that this award was based on “personal…
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Response to a Proponent of Reverse Auctions
A recent reader of the results of our study published in Inside Supply Management took issue with our results, and noted the following: “As an experienced sourcing professional and current…
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Implementing a Data Warehouse: Results of Dr. Payton’s Action Research with Solectron
In a 2001 project with Solectron, Dr. Fay Payton and a handful of students tracked data warehouse implementation for 8 months. During the last months (March-May 2002), the authors conducted…
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IT’s Contribution: Information Visibility and Systems Implementation
One of the biggest areas of opportunity for CIOs is in the area of information visibility, the process of sharing critical data required to manage the flow of products, services,…
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Managing Alliances in the EPC Industry
In the engineering project and construction (EPC) industry, a different market environment exists from many other industries. EPC’s are responsible for designing, constructing, and managing all issues associated with major…
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The Profit-Leverage Effect in Supply Chains
One of the biggest opportunities for improving your financial performance is reducing the amount of inventory in the supply chain. How much would you guess the average company spends on…
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Ten Reasons Why You Can’t Automate Human Relationships - A Guide for Supply Chain Managers, Part 2
We continue the discussion in the previous column on SCM on why human relationships are so important to management supply chains. 6. Data Mean Different Things to Different People In…
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How Mature Is Your Supply Chain?
Recent economic events have forced many managers to confront an important message: the old model of managing supply chains is broken and simply doesn’t work anymore. Industries from automotive to…
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10 Reasons Why You Can’t Automate Human Relationships - Part 2
As discussed in Part I, there are no shortcuts in automating human behavior. Based on my insights and discussions over the last year or two, I realized how this theme…
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Ten Reasons Why You Can’t Automate Human Relationships - A Guide for Supply Chain Managers, Part 1
I recently received the following email from Tom Linton, Chief Procurement Officer of Agere Systems, stationed in Singapore. “Bob, I bought your book [Supply Chain Redesign] this weekend and started…
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10 Reasons Why You Can’t Automate Human Relationships - Part 1
I recently received the following email from Tom Linton, Chief Procurement Officer of Agere Systems, stationed in Singapore. “Rob, I bought your book (Supply Chain Redesign) this weekend and started…
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Minority-Owned Supplier Contracts: The Right Smart Thing to Do!
Programs to stimulate growth of minority-owned businesses have existed in the United States since the late 1960s. The term minority-owned suppliers is used by the U.S. federal government to describe…
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Want to Improve Your Supply Chain Performance? Start with Your Suppliers!
Companies now know that suppliers of critical goods and services can provide major competitive benefits, in the form of lower costs, improved quality, on-time delivery, technological innovation, and customer service.…
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Reverse Auctions: How Do Suppliers Really Feel About Them?
In September I attended a meeting of over 130 executives at a joint meeting of the members of the Drug, Chemical, and Allied Trades (DCAT) group and the Institute for…
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Skills for the New Era of Supply Chain Management - A Look to the Future
As we approach the end of the year, many of us are wondering what the new year will bring for us, as well as what it will take to keep…
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Supply Chain Redesign Requires Open Communication! - Lessons from GM’s OTD Supplier Council
I attended a meeting of the General Motors Order-to-Delivery Supplier Council, led by Dick Alagna, Director of OTD-Purchasing on September 10, 2002. The meeting was held at General Motors University…
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Key Themes Facing Supply Chain Executives
As a member of the Editorial Board for the periodical “Inside Supply Management”, I recently sat in on a teleconference involving multiple executives from different industries, including Boeing, Sealy, Raytheon,…
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The Hidden Impact of Inventory
Many managers complain that senior executives do not understand the importance of supply chain management (SCM). At supply chain conferences and educational seminars, the phrase “I wish my boss were…
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Supplier Development Strategies and Outcomes
I was recently asked by Jon Stegner from Delphi Automotive to put together some research materials we completed on Supplier Development strategies. Delphi is currently attempting to initiate this strategy…
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Finding the “Sweet Spot” in the Supply Chain
A critical process in creating a high performing supply chain is developing an in-depth understanding of your organization’s position relative to customers and suppliers in the supply chain. By employing…
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Data Reliability - A Critical Requirement for Integration
During the 1980s and 1990s, almost every major company went through some form of re-engineering and restructuring, as thousands of workers and managers were shed in a variety of efforts…
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Emerging Market Channels - Reverse Auctions
One of the few survivors of the dot-com implosion was Freemarkets, a company that executes revers auctions. The goal of reverse auctions is to bring buyers and sellers together to…
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Designing Fresh Products - A Collaborative Activity
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Western organizations began re-evaluating and re-engineering their new product development processes. The reality in many markets today is that 40 percent or…
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Creating Information Visibility in the Chain
In the summer of 2000, with its order book overflowing but its assembly lines sputtering from lack of parts, Cisco Systems decided to crank up its supply line. It committed…
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Managing Relationships in the Supply Chain
As we begin the new year, many companies are standing back and re-evaluating the health of their supply chains. In this column, we continue with the eight-part series on transforming…
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The New Supply Chain Model
Supply Chain Resource Consortium (SCRC The events of the last four months have emphasized more than ever how single events can have repercussions that are felt around the world. In…
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