Supply Chain Management
...direct effect on how successfully organizations function. The purpose of supply chain management is to remove communication barriers and eliminate redundancies by coordinating, monitoring, and controlling processes within an organization. Identifying the components of the supply chain, facilitating better decision-making, creating improved communication, and identifying weak links in the chain causing bottlenecks in an organization are crucial to supply chain integration. There are three principle elements of supply chain integration: management of information and financial flows, inventory management, and management of relationships of trading partners (Power, 2005).
Modern businesses are dynamic in nature and to stay competitive (organizations) need to optimize their business processes by understanding and reacting to the rapid changes in their environment' (Banavar, Black, Caceres, Ebling, et al, 2005). Dialysis, a specialized field in the healthcare industry, is a major business entity with penchant for a rapidly changing environment. Dialysis is a medical treatment for individuals with limited or no kidney function and without this specialized therapy these unfortunate individuals would not survive. In dialysis, supply chain management is crucial from all aspects in providing comprehensive and adequate patient care. The constant changing needs of patients and the organizational environment can cause disruption in a well managed supply chain within a clinic's operation resulting in inadequate patient care. Lack of inventory, inadequate staffing, and poor supplier relationships can all contribute to compromised customer (patient) service.
Identified Supply Chain Process
In any organization the inventory control process is a very important part of the supply chain process. Inventory control is concerned with minimizing the total cost of...
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