Types of Supply Chains

Supply chains exist in both service and manufacturing organizations, although the complexity of the chain may vary significantly from industry to industry and firm to firm. Depending on the type of product or service and the sequence of steps in the supply chain process, supply chains can be categorized into various structures such as pipelined structure; late customization; divergent structure; and convergent structure [#!nvbook!#]. In the pipeline structure, the product goes through a series of production/assembly stages as in mass production or continuous manufacturing. In the late customization structure, the initial stages will produce standard items which are assembled and customized to specific requirements either in local plants or in the distribution process. Personal computers, IC chips, disk drives, laser printers, electronic gadgets, etc. fall into this category. Here the product variety is obtained in late stages of manufacturing/assembly. Inventories are maintained at the subassembly level and customization facilities or plants will assemble these or configure these rapidly into customer desired products. In the diverging structure, customization starts in early production phases. A wide variety of finished products are produced with a limited number of raw materials or components. Examples of such supply chains include electro-mechanical systems such as motors; textiles; metal fabrications; and chemicals. The fourth type is the converging structure where a series of assembly operations are carried out to obtain the final product. Examples include aircrafts, construction industry, etc.