Not your father's supply chain

The changes in how trading partners work with each other are only in the earliest stages.

By -- Modern Materials Handling, 11/1/2000

"The next five years are going to be very interesting. We're no longer going to be dealing with your father's supply chain." That's the outlook from Mike Bittner, research director of supply chain e-fulfillment at AMR Research.

What he sees replacing the traditional linear supply chain is one that is Internet-connected and looks much more like a web than a nice straight line of sequential events. But as Bittner pointed out in a talk to the Integrated Systems and Controls Product Section of Material Handling Industry of America, the shift from old to new is only in its earliest stages.

He said 2000 has been the year of corporate executives asking: "What are we doing on the Internet?" And the answer they're getting back is not as much as will be the case in the near future.

As Bittner pointed out, there is a difference between doing business over the Internet and running your business over the Internet. In fact, there are no major companies running their business over the Internet today, he added. "But we will get there and companies will run mission critical aspects of their business over the Internet."

This will happen in four stages.

To begin, intra-enterprise collaboration technologies will break down walls between departments. Next, inter-enterprise collaboration technologies will allow companies to do joint planning and scheduling with their suppliers and customers.

The next phase will rely on the Internet to foster rapid growth in the dynamics of supply chain trading communities. The result will be small companies are as much a part of the mix as large companies.

And the final stage will involve trading exchanges. Bittner expects them to become an integral part of supply chain trading communities. Both private exchanges and public exchanges in the form of major consortia will most likely dominate the landscape, Bittner added.

did you hear?

"Out in Silicon Valley, the joke is that B2C stands for "back to college. " It's for all those people who left school to find fame and fortune on the Internet and are now going back to college when they didn't find it."
Michael Bittner
AMR Research
Irvine, Calif.