How has technology altered supply chain management? Discuss some of the available tools

What will be an ideal response?

Many companies use electronic data interchange (EDI) to link suppliers, manufacturers, customers, and intermediaries, especially in industries in which suppliers replenish in high volumes. In a global context, EDI has been used to link exporters with customs to facilitate quick processing. The next wave of technology affecting the global supply chain was the implementation of information technology packages known as enterprise resource planning (ERP). ERP is software that can link information flows from different parts of a business and from different geographic areas. Radio frequency ID (RFID) is a system that labels all products with an individual electronic tag that stores and transmits information about the product's origin, destination, and quantity. Electronic readers are used to scan the tags and download the information to a database that can be used with an ERP system. Another technological innovation is e-commerce, which is using the Internet to join together suppliers with companies and companies with customers. Some companies have established an extranet—the use of the Internet to link a company with outsiders. The new technology wave is private technology exchange (PTX), which is an online collaboration model that brings manufacturers, distributors, value-added resellers, and customers together to execute trading transactions and to share information about demand, production, availability, and more.