Archive | June 2011

Supply and Demand Network Management

“Supply chain” is not the right word. The system it describes is not restricted to the supply side and it does not take the form of a chain. Should it be “supply and demand network management” rather than SCM?

Supply Chains as Complex Adaptive Systems

As recently discussed on this website, the paradigm of SCM research should refer to the system “supply chain” rather than to the system “company” or to the system “supplier-buyer relationship”. In their interesting conceptual note, Supply Networks and Complex Adaptive Systems: Control versus Emergence, Choi et al. (2001) acknowledge the notion of a supply network as a system. The authors go even further and argue that supply networks should be recognized as a complex adaptive system (CAS). Choi et al. propose that many supply networks emerge rather than result from purposeful design by a singular entity. They also emphasize that when managing supply networks, managers must appropriately balance how much to control and how much to let emerge. A similar viewpoint has later been taken by Surana et al. (2005; Supply-chain Networks: A Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective). Can the notion of a supply chain as a complex adaptive system be a building block for the missing paradigm of our discipline?