Surviving Supply Chain Integration: Strategies for small Manufacturers

Manufacturing can be defined as an activity which, utilizing a variety of capabilities, adds value to a material, thereby making possible different uses of that material. Each step in the manufacturing process adds value. The first manufacturers were probably artisans who worked by themselves to design and create products. They served as both supplier and manufacturer, gathering and managing the resources, and applying various processes to add value to the materials. Over time, manufacturing progressed to a series of specialists, each of whom supplied or added specific amounts and types of value. The benefits of this division of labor were that (1) more resources could be brought to bear on the task of adding value and (2) specialization tended to reduce costs and increase the efficiency, consistency, and quality of each operation.


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