LOGISTICS
The notion of supply being chain-like is changing , with the pandemic forcing businesses to adopt a more dynamic , response and network-driven approach
WRITTEN BY : SEAN ASHCROFT
When British logistician Keith Oliver coined the term ‘ supply chain ’ back in the 1980s the world was unconnected in ways younger people today might struggle to believe .
PCs were yet to be mass-produced , and those who owned one tended to be male teenage coders who spent way too much time in their bedrooms . There was no internet of course . The closest most people got to virtually connecting to strangers was when they got a crossed line on their finger-dial analogue phone , and could hear strange conversations in the ether .
So when Oliver mentioned supply ‘ chains ’ people were genuinely astonished , because very little about daily life suggested the world might be an interconnected place .
Now , 40 years on , Oliver ’ s definition of how supply works is itself in danger of becoming a museum piece , as the world moves away from the linear connections of the past 40 years to a network of evershifting inter-connected nodes . There is nothing even remotely chain-like about it .
Business is moving from linear to networked supply “ The challenge is to move from the concept of a linear chain to the dynamic configuration
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