What Is Dell's Supply Chain?

RETAIL SECTOR IN PUNJAB

Dr B B Goyal* Dr Meghna Aggarwal** Abstract

Supply chain management is getting the right things, to the right places, at the right times for maximum profit. Many important strategic decisions impact the supply chain: how to coordinate the production of goods and services, including which suppliers to buy materials from; how and where to store inventory; how to distribute products in the most cost effective, timely manner; and how and when to make payments. The highly competitive environment of the organized retailing sector has made companies look for a competitive

Information engineering that combines new information technologies with improved production, inventory, distribution and payment methods have revolutionized supply chain operations. For example, one way to buy a computer is to get on Dell’s web site and configure and price a system exactly as one wants. As soon as the online order is submitted, all of Dell’s global suppliers— those providing chips, monitors and so on—are immediately notified of the sale and go to work so that one can receive the computer typically within a week. In contrast the old model of supply chain management requires the customer to go to a store in search of a product that the manufacturer thinks you want to buy.

Introduction

Throughout history, new ideas and technologies have revolutionized supply chains and changed the way of work. Two hundred years ago, giant machines replaced manual labor to complete tasks in large factories. Railroads, electricity and new communications media has expanded markets and has made supply chains better, faster and cheaper.

Evolution of Supply Chain

Mass Production Era. In the early 1900s, Henry Ford had firstly created the assembly line. This reduced the time required to build a car (Model T) from 728 hours to 1.5 hours and ushered in the mass production era. Over the next 60 years, American manufacturers

But, the logistics perspective that considers the company itself without considering its supply chain members is not sufficient. To gain this competitive advantage, there is the need to adopt the Supply Chain Management (SCM) approach and consider the supply chain as a whole.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is “the management of upstream and downstream relationships with suppliers and customers to deliver superior customer value at less cost to the supply chain as a whole” (Christopher, 1998). This philosophy requires a movement away from arms-length relationships toward partnership-style arrangements.

SCM involves integration, co-ordination and collaboration across organisations and throughout the supply chain. It means that SCM requires internal (intraorganisational) and external (interorganisational)