During NOFOMA 2009 conference, hosted by Jönköping University in Sweden, I had a nice discussion with a friend of mine about human’s enjoyments.
In initial parts of the discussion, my friend insisted that in limited time of life, we must just do what we individually enjoy. I to some extent agreed with him although reminded him that it is important to bear in mind that our enjoyments do not be in contrast with our societies’ enjoyments.
For example, a thief or a radical :( may really enjoy what he/she does but is it really what most people in the society adore?
This story resembles very much to story of supply chains. Analogically, each person can be considered as ‘actors’ of the chain and enjoyment as ‘value’ in the chain (network). Actors can be defined as suppliers, focal companies, distribution centers, etc.
Effectively, the holy grail of science of “supply chain” is managing the system in a way which maximizes (optimizes) enjoyments (value) of each actor in the way of chain’s value. This is basis of several concepts and tools in supply chain management like collaboration, coordination, information sharing, game theory, etc.
I personally believe that “Science of complexity” is one of the best tools for studying and analyzing behavior of supply chains and networks. The holy grail of science of complexity is to figure out how groups of entities (agents) work together. This necessitates thorough perception of each agent’s behavior as well as emergent behaviors of agents’ interactions.
As supply chains are complicated and complex systems, themes and tools of science of complexity should be even applicable in context of supply chains. In some of the future posts, I am going to explain some tools, themes and techniques in details.
In initial parts of the discussion, my friend insisted that in limited time of life, we must just do what we individually enjoy. I to some extent agreed with him although reminded him that it is important to bear in mind that our enjoyments do not be in contrast with our societies’ enjoyments.
For example, a thief or a radical :( may really enjoy what he/she does but is it really what most people in the society adore?
This story resembles very much to story of supply chains. Analogically, each person can be considered as ‘actors’ of the chain and enjoyment as ‘value’ in the chain (network). Actors can be defined as suppliers, focal companies, distribution centers, etc.
Effectively, the holy grail of science of “supply chain” is managing the system in a way which maximizes (optimizes) enjoyments (value) of each actor in the way of chain’s value. This is basis of several concepts and tools in supply chain management like collaboration, coordination, information sharing, game theory, etc.
I personally believe that “Science of complexity” is one of the best tools for studying and analyzing behavior of supply chains and networks. The holy grail of science of complexity is to figure out how groups of entities (agents) work together. This necessitates thorough perception of each agent’s behavior as well as emergent behaviors of agents’ interactions.
As supply chains are complicated and complex systems, themes and tools of science of complexity should be even applicable in context of supply chains. In some of the future posts, I am going to explain some tools, themes and techniques in details.
