Re-engineering Supply Chains Coupled With A View Towards Lower Corporate

Re-engineering supply chains coupled with a view towards lower corporate costs is likely to force a higher level of automation in corporate supply chain management techniques. The resistance to change which has hindered the development of better supply chain initiatives is likely to fade because manufacturers will have to compete effectively in order to serve costumers (University of Pretoria, 2002, Pp. 3-8). With improvements in the available technology, it is likely that the supply chain management systems of the future will attempt to incorporate forecasting, collaborative planning, targeted opportunities and the common objectives of various enterprises. Access to shared databases will mean that these can be mined to extract market data and potential customers for an alignment of demand planning across the supply chain. Several levels of decision making and a clear flow of products, services and information across the supply chain will be desired by manufacturers, resulting in novel attempts to apply information technology to supply chain optimisation. Thus, there is a considerable scope for the application of information technology to supply chain management applications in many manufacturing industries (Mani, 2003, Pp. 6-15).

5.1 Conclusion
Evolution of the web services and associated technologies has seen many novel applications becoming web enabled. Attempts towards a wider application of web services technologies are likely to revolutionise the manner in which many industries operate and web services for supply chain management provides a capability for having rapidly changing of supplier / consumer relationships within widely distributed geographic regions. Automotive supply chain management systems that are web enabled are necessary in view of the global manufacturing strategies that must be adopted by successful automotive manufacturers in order to respond to changing demand and challenges from competition. The greatest hindrances towards the development of automated supply chain management systems have been technology evolution and the organisational inertia which has wanted for the established ways of doing business to persist. However, requirements for more complex and efficient manufacturing with an emphasis on focused activities along with a tendency to subcontract component manufacturing has resulted in a move towards better supply chain management. Emergence of global data standards and new expectations related to business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions has meant that manufacturers are more likely to succeed in their activities if they have the capability for automated interactions over the web. It is, therefore, very likely that there will be a greater proliferation of web enabled supply chain management systems in the years to come.