Every day, thousands of companies perform magic. Millions of parts from thousands of suppliers are manufactured and transported to the right place at the right time, with the correct documentation and with financial transactions to customers in hundreds of different currencies. As a supply chain leader with more than 25 years of experience, I still marvel at how it works so effectively and generally reliably, because supply chain management is as much an art as it is a science.
We’ve had an awful lot of practice. Humans have been managing supply chains for a very long time because from the dawn of civilization, we have been using, trading, and transporting materials to survive and thrive. Every empire ever to exist was built on the foundation of trading and supply chain management. The existence of cities was dependent on supply chain management – the better the supply chain, the bigger and more prosperous a city would become.
- Supply chains now extend far beyond physical goods – digital assets and services are intrinsic parts of a modern supply chain.
- Supply chains have historically been built on the extraction of material, depleting the planet, and creating damaging effects.
- Supply chains account for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions and if we carry on unchecked, our planet will be uninhabitable in a few generations.
These new areas, along with the supply chain function becoming more closely tied to key corporate financial goals, call for a strategy that brings critical activities into synchronization: supply chain orchestration.
A modern approach within supply chain management
If you’ve been to a symphony, you know the final performance of a musical composition is the product of dozens, if not hundreds, of elements coming together in perfect harmony. From the moment the composer plans and writes the piece to the contributions of each individual musician’s instruments and the direction of the conductor – the music you hear is the result of the art and science of orchestration.
