In the last two decades, Pakistani managers have witnessed a period of change unparalleled in world history in terms of advances in technology, globalization of markets, and stabilization of political economies.
With the increasing number of competitors and the WTO, organizations working in Pakistan have to improve their internal and external processes to stay competitive. During 1960s-1970s, the companies began to develop detailed market strategies focussed on creating and capturing customer loyalty.
Organizations also realized that strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were necessary to support these requirements. Design engineers should be able to translate customer needs into product and service specifications, which then had to be produced at a high quality and reasonable cost.
As the demand for new products escalated in the 1980s, manufacturing organizations, especially production sector, were required to become flexible and responsive to modify existing products and processes or to develop new ones for meeting the changing customer needs.
In the 1990s, as manufacturing capabilities improved, managers realized that material and service inputs from suppliers had a major impact on their organizations' ability to meet the customer needs. This led to an increased focus on the supply base and the organization's sourcing strategy.
Managers also realized that producing a quality product was not enough. Getting the products to customers when, where, how, and in the quantity that they wanted, in a cost-effective manner, constituted an entirely new type of challenge.
This can only be possible when you manage a supply chain, you coordinate supply management, operations, and logistic (term normally used for transportation) into seamless pipeline to maintain a continual flow of products or services.
You extend your reach beyond one firm's effort to deliver products and services to include all firms involved, from the raw materials source to the final customers. "Supply chain - a term increasingly used by the logistics professionals - encompasses every effort involved in producing and delivery a final product, from the supplier to the customer.
Four basic processes - plan, source, make, deliver-broadly define these efforts, which include managing supply and demand, sourcing raw materials and parts, manufacturing and assembling, warehousing and inventory tracking, order entry and order management, distribution across all channels, and delivery to the customer."
More recently, the "Logistics Renaissance" was also born, spawning a whole set of time-reducing information technologies and logistics networks aimed at meeting these challenges and now shaped as new school of management called the "Supply Chain Management."
Viewing all these changes in the business world, it is proposed to the government and especially to production ministry to institute a Pakistan Supply Chain Confederation in order to:
* Improve the understanding of the benefits of Supply Chain Management throughout the production industry;
* Define the Supply Chains (as per nature of the industries in production sector) and key business processes and the best practices for each industry;
* Highlight the main opportunities to improve performance and service in the most cost-beneficial ways;
* Develop the best tools, techniques and methodology, and also standard descriptions and definitions for each and every industry;
* Promote the development of standard supply chain communications including Electronic Data Interchange system by capitalizing electronic revolutions;
* Promote the development of standard computer applications software's as per nature of different industries;
* Encourage focused and effective research and development in supply chain management by developing proper infrastructure and by providing finical assistance.
* Encourage education and training in Supply Chain Management and the development of skilled groups to facilities improvements.
This confederation should be open to all and should build on the best areas of expertize in existing bodies and institutions, including standards bodies and universities.
This will help the production industry to consolidate its leading place in the development of supply chain management and associated logistical approaches and to maximize the benefits to be derived from cost effective implementations.
