Does Engineering Play A Role In Supply Chain Management Case Study

How does engineering play a role in supply chain management? Well first, let’s define what supply chain management is. According to Columbia Engineering School, Supply chain management entails managing the flow of goods and information through a production or distribution network to ensure that the right goods are delivered to the right place in the right quantity at the right time. Two primary objectives are to gain competitive edge via superior customer service and to reduce costs through efficient procurement, production and delivery systems. Supply chain management encompasses a wide range of activities — from strategic activities, such as capacity expansion or consolidation, make/buy decisions and initiation of supplier contracts, to tactical activities, such as production, procurement and logistics planning, to, finally, operational activities, such as operations scheduling and release decisions, batch sizing and issuing of purchase orders. ( Columbia University. (2014). DROMB8108 Supply Chain Management. Retrieved from http://ieor.columbia.edu/supply-chain-management)

Engineering and Supply chain are complimentary than you may think.

We must remember that communication is key in this process. The supplier will have strong knowledge of product and manufacturing capability and the sourcing agency need to incorporate that within the product design. Specification balancing should end with a set of subsystem and component specifications that are agreed to by supplier and the procuring company. The supplier will use these specifications to develop manufacturing process and capabilities specifications. The manufacturing process chosen may have a significant effect of product cost, schedule, quality and reliability. Specifications are a necessity because they are intended to answer any potential questions on the maintenance and production of the