Supply chain management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Supply chain management - Essay Example The active participants in a supply chain are linked by information flows and physical flows. Information flows are the various communication channels that these firms use to coordinate and control the daily flow of goods and services in the supply chain. These channels are used by various partners in the supply chain as a conduit of information regarding their plans. Physical flows are the storage, transformation and movement of goods and services, and they constitute the most visible component of the supply chain. Supply chains find themselves competing against other supply chains due to the competitive nature of today’s markets (Lu 2012: 59). This has led to the creation of various forms of supply chain management modules. One of these modules of supply chain management is the green supply chain management. This involves the incorporation of environmental friendly practices in activities and processes that take place in supply chain. Green supply chain management requires i ntegration of environmental friendly practices in all levels of the chain of supply. This includes product design, material selection and sourcing, delivery of the final product to the consumer and manufacturing process. Firms should also consider the end of life handling of the product after it is used or after fulfilling its intended purpose. This paper aims to discuss green supply chain management. Green supply management is the process of using environmentally friendly implements and their transformation into byproducts that can improve or be recycled (Ehrgott 2009: 271). The basic principle of green supply management is to reduce costs while at the same time conserving the environment. When a company reconsiders its options and adopts environmental friendly solutions for their production activities, they are likely to reap substantial benefits (Worthington 2012: 104). This is because, instead of focusing on reducing the unit cost of production, a company strives to reduce overa ll production costs. This can be achieved by applying environmental friendly innovations, which can have a substantial impact on production. This is because most environmental solutions are cheap and easy to implement at no extra cost (Zhang 2010: 2). An example of this is a top European company that designed a system that would be using 95 horsepower. The engineer in this company re-designed the system by using pipes with a bigger diameter than the initial ones and reducing their length. This saw a significant reduction for energy in terms of horsepower to 7. This goes to show that environmental friendly designs do not necessarily mean spending a lot of money, but small changes can bring about tremendous benefits to a firm. Various factors have influenced the management of supply chains around the world ranging from the beginning of the global economy to changes in the environment. The environment has played a significant role, in influencing supply chains, to change their orientat ion towards environmental solutions. These solutions are effective and efficient in terms of costs and resource utilisation. Human utilisation of natural resources has been an on-going process since the beginning of life, which until a few hundred years ago, was a sustainable activity (Cohen 2010: 213). This is because up until then, the environment was able to cope and sustain the demands of humans. Today, human activities have