The Basic Supply Chain

A basic example of a supply chain can be seen from the process of a customer buying an item from a supermarket. A customer goes to a supermarket store to purchase a kettle. The supply chain begins with the customer and their need for that specific item, in this case the kettle. The supermarket fills its shelves using stock that may have been supplied from a finished goods warehouse that the supermarket manages or from a distributor using vehicles supplied by a third party. The distributor, in turn, is supplied by a manufacturer. The manufacturing plant had received the raw material from a variety of suppliers who may have been supplied by lower tier suppliers i.e. packaging material may come from a packaging company while they receive raw materials to manufacture the packaging from other suppliers.