History of Supply Chain Management

The Supply Chain industry has been around for quite some time. As a result, it has changed several times. Taking a step back and looking at the history of Supply Chain is a good idea because viewing the past can give us insight to the present and future of our industry.

Lets start back about 100 years ago. Our nations economy, along with the global economy looked very different from what we see today. Back then Supply Chain focused on stream-lining very labor intensive activities. There was also a large push to optimize things like, storage, packaging and shelf space. Supply Chain was not necessary the global logistics field that we see today.

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About 50 years ago, there was a major shift in how companies transported goods. Companies moved away from railways, and toward shipping in large trucks. This was significant because it was a whole new way to ship things with more efficiency. This resulted in more handling costs, and more warehouse space being purchased by large companies. Now that so much more product was being moved to market, it was getting increasingly difficult to keep inventory and and transactions records. This is when Supply Chain truly started to grow.

The 1980's marked the start of the modern Supply Chain era that we currently see today. Global economies became increasingly dependent on one another, and new technology allowed for product to be shipped across the world at rates that were never before seen. This is when Supply Chains became truly complex. This is when the need for Supply Chain Managers was felt across the world.

The future is very bright for Supply Chain Management. This is a high demand field that offers very rewarding work. Companies are always looking to streamline, cut costs, and increase profit. The Supply Chain Manager has a large role to play in the future.

-Devon Anderson