Question

​A) Thomas L.​ Friedman, The New York Times Foreign Affairs​ Columnist, in his book The World is​ Flat, quotes Yossi​ Sheffi, MIT professor of engineering​ systems, as saying​ “Making Stuff,​ that’s easy. Supply​ chain, that is really​ hard.” Agree or disagree with this​ statement, supporting your argument with examples from this class.  

Answer 1

Yes, I totally agree with this statement that "Making Stuff,​ that’s easy. Supply​ chain, that is really​ hard.”

This statement simply implies the fact that production is considered an easier task as compared to managing and integrating the whole supply chain process. For example, let's take Apple. As we can see, Apple has a number of suppliers to have the their parts. It gets its screen from Samsung Korea and chips from Silicon Valley etc. Various parts are being brought up in the production facility in California, US where the production of the phone takes place finally. The process is simple, to simply assemble all the parts together and make a final profuct. But what's harder is the process of getting the resources and parts to be provided. By having various suppliers around the world, integrating the process of getting the resources from the suppliers is the main task. How the resources are being achieved, managed, integrated and assembled by various suppliers and managing the effective and efficient relationship with those supplies from the companies is the actual process of supply chain and is considered harder than simple process of production.