Supply chain encompasses everything from determining the source of the materials, procuring the materials, warehousing the materials, producing the finished goods, warehousing the finished goods, determining the means of transportation and transportation routes, distributing goods to distribution centers/channel partners/end customers as well as the system required to run these operations in a perfect coordination. A supply chain can also be defined as -“A complicated collaboration between the multiple organizations and their operations for the common goal of making cumulative efforts to source, produce, warehouse and distribute the products or services for the use of the end consumers”.
These may sound only few number of operations but each one of them is an intricate area in itself, so complex that a complex supply chain can be compared with a nervous system in a human body which consists of neurons, axons, dendrites and synapses. Just like sometimes some neurons may not be directly connected to each other but they still have an effect on the each others’ functions, different organizations or other entities of a complex supply chain may not be directly connected to each other but they may have a direct or indirect impact on each others’ operations and performances.