Technology Integration Needs for Manufacturing, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management

Abstract

As the complexity of business increases, numerous technologies are being used in business. The previous chapters provided stepping stone information regarding the general aspects of technology needs and applicability. Now you may want to know more specifically how and where you can use the technology. For the purpose of a vivid presentation, this chapter limits the application domains to manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain management, and sees how the technology can improve business performance. These application domains entail more scattered business units around the globe than any other business realms. Thus, technology plays a critical role for the seamless business coordination in these areas. An OEM may have global presences in different locations of the world. The OEM headquartered in the U.S. may have a design center in Europe, an engineering center in the U.S., and manufacturing plants in both the U.S. and Asia. The OEM may have relationships with suppliers located globally as well. Globally scattered presences of business entities make the OEM’s business hard to connect those entities with one another. For example, when the OEM acquires raw materials, several business entities are involved, such as, foreign suppliers, foreign transportation carriers, domestic transportation carriers, and manufacturing plants in the U.S. After production, the OEM sells products through global sales networks. Like the procurement of raw materials, finished products are delivered to customers via logistics networks that involve domestic and international transportation carriers. This is a typical structure of the business entity network of OEMs having global presences. When the number of entities increases, its network structure becomes extremely complex. An automotive OEM in the U.S. has several thousands of suppliers and retailers. Dealing with all those business partners involves a tremendous amount of business transactions and information sharing. They must rely on technologies to handle this complexity.