the final destinations. An even broader perspective calls for studying how the company's suppliers themselves obtain their inputs all the way back to the raw materials." The PioneerIn industrial and retail circles, when supply chain management is mentioned, the word "Wal-Mart" has to come to mind. Wal-Mart was one of the first retailers to make heavy investments in supply chain technology. Computerized scanning equipment at the checkout line enables Wal-Mart to know what customers are buying and where they are buying it. They, or rather the system, then "tells" manufactures what to produce and where to ship the goods. A recent statement made in jest by a student of Radford University is not far off the mark. "If women in Roanoke, Virginia, start buying bobby pins, stores in Atlanta, Georgia know about it within five minutes and manufactures start shipping truckloads of bobby pins to all the Wal-Mart stores in the U.S." As humorous as this may sound, the statement is accurate.Wal-Mart insists on linking their computers directly to those of its suppliers. If a manufacturer wants to supply goods to Wal-Mart, they have to use EDI. Once connected, Wal-Mart puts the responsibility of making resupply decisions in the hands of the manufacture, not the retailer. "To discourage oversupply, Wal-Mart does not pay its suppliers until their products are sold." "Wal-Mart requires its suppliers to ship their goods tagged and hung, so that they can be moved directly into the store's selling space, thus reducing warehousing and data processing cost. As a result, Wal-Mart stores use only 10% of their space for goods storage, compared to the 25% average non-selling space in competitor stores." Another result of Wal-Mart's computerized ordering system is the use of EDI. Industry Interest peakIn the last two years, it seems the rest of American industry is ready to stop watching Wal-Mart and ready to jump on the bandwagon. Most available li...
