panies found that best-in-class companies enjoy a cost advantage of 0.3 to 7.0 percent of revenue compared to the median performance of companies in their industries." The computer industries have seen the light of supply chain management as well. An announcement was made the end of March that manufacturers, resellers and distributors of IT products plan to form an organization to oversee development of standards for what they call "E-commerce" transactions. In other words, transactions involving computer products. Fadi Chehade, executive director of newly formed Rosetta Net said, "It's a shame that grocers can look within the supply chain and figure out how many Oreo cookies they need, but technology companies have thousands of product returns daily." "Projects are underway to create data formats for software, memory, and notebook products. These new products are expected to be show cased in the summer of 98." Companies are beginning to wake up and see that in order to compete successfully in the 21st century, a fundamental shift in executive mind-set of the manufacturing industry has to occur. A 1998 vision in Manufacturing study from Deloitte & Touche Inc., found the following: "To create value for customers, manufacturers must eliminate traditional boundaries between customers and integrate more closely with them. The study has identified five strategic areas where companies must focus. These are: confront the realities of globalization craft a new agenda for product innovation resolve the customer paradox integrate the global supply chain align the organization to compete in the 21st century." The Path to developing a good Supply ChainMost supply chains consist of a large number of interacting, but not integrated business units. So, from this point the first order of business it to get the "home location" in order. JIT is the primary focus and the goal is to reduce in-plant lead times through the elimination of waste....
