Benefits of Supply Chain Improvement:

Improvement in supply-chain management is extremely significant in providing competitive advantages to the companies. A survey was conducted in US with sixty-five closely- associated engineers, director, project manager, and executives of firms dealing in supply-chain area (Savoie, 1998). Their ranked-response regarding most important benefit of supply-chain improvement included following:

a. drop operating costs,

b. improve responsiveness and drop cycle time,

c. enhance customer service,

d. simplify operations,

e. enhance quality,

f. support significant volume growth,

g. drop capital basis/improved return on capital,

h. effectively support a growing or diverse customer base,

i. effectively offer a greater variety of products, and

j. Focus on core competencies.

The benefits of supply-chain improvement may be harnessed by better integration of supply-chain in terms of material, information and money flows. Better coordination of different functions is possible through ERP implementation/SCM solution.