Integrating Demand and Supply Chains

The evolution in the implementation of logistics and supply chain management has been rapid in the last few years. As companies move from outsourcing to offshoring of business activities, the ability to coordinate regional or global operations become ever more important, with implications for collaboration, information sharing, planning, and responsiveness in realtime, far-flung supply chains. At the same time, while many companies have tried to implement some form of collaborative networks, the results from collaboration have been mixed or dubious up until recently. Especially in Asia, collaboration may face even more difficulties related to poor IT and telecommunications infrastructure, lack of trust in information sharing, and insufficient management understanding of collaboration concepts.