Operations & IT Articles

Supply chain management is the management of all the elements of supply chain from the input to the output stage, from raw materials to the final product. The definition is more or less the same from various organizations. Now add green to this definition and it becomes green supply chain management but the meaning is much different. Green supply chain means using green methods in procurement, manufacturing and distribution. It aims at eliminating waste at every point of the supply chain. Recently environmental issues under legislation and pressure from customers in developed nations like US, the European Union, and Japan have become an important concern for manufacturers persuading them to upgrade themselves. GSCM is a tool that provides an advantageous situation to companies and organizations; which includes achieving profit and increasing market share by reducing environmental impacts and increasing the ecological efficiency.

‘Sushruta’ is an oldest known milestone of Indian healthcare sector and India is still one of the leading countries across the world in providing effective and economical health services to some of the deadliest diseases such as cancer, cardiac care, paediatrics etc. But what is re-invigorating the fortune of Indian health care is its assimilation with technology, and indeed we are best in world for both of these.

Green supply chain can be defined as a means of recognizing the complex network of activities which are involved in delivering a finished good to the end user or customer. The activities involve the entire stages of the product’s life cycle, from procurement of raw material, manufacturing, use and reuse till the final recycling or disposal. Thus, green supply chain management (GSCM) consists of improvement over green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution and reverse logistics. The idea is to eliminate or minimize waste in the form of energy, emission, chemical, hazardous solid waste etc. along the supply chain.

The percentage of population living in cities in 2040 will be around 65% in comparison to around 53% in 2016. 1.3 million people are currently moving into cities each week. Tokyo, the largest city in the world has already crossed 36 million mark. The top 600 urban centers generate 60% of global GDP. And cities use 60-80% of world’s annual energy needs. All these facts elucidate the profligate pace we have picked up, and everything from needs to data is increasing at an exponential rate. There is an urgent need to arrange everything in a structure or else the heap would crumble down.

Supply chain risk management can be defined as the “end to end management of the flow of goods and services in the supply chain to ensure uninterrupted services at the promised level to the customer at known cost.” The objective of supply chain risk management is to design and maintain business continuity plans to ensure operations can be carried out without change if crisis hits. It is a process of systematically identifying, analyzing and dealing with risk in supply chain.

The fast development of information and mobile technology in the past few years is changing many aspects of our lives i.e. how we look for the information we seek, how we plan our travel and most of all how we buy products or services. Even though classic store based retail is still preferred, e-commerce, which involves buying and selling of products and services mainly through electronic channels, like computer, tablets, mobiles etc. is gaining ground. The most common form of e-commerce is online shopping.