The term supply chain management was first coined by a U.S. industry consultant in the early 1980s. However, the concept of a supply chain in management was of great importance long before, in the early 20th century.
Supply chain management is the word coined for the effective management of all the partners and the information disseminated between them. Take an example of Dell computers, Micheal Dell cant built his business just by selling the computers to the customers, but he need to see the complex problems of the customers and solve these problems through just in time manufacturing of the product, then how to minimize the wastage in the production then to evaluate what customers are doing and how they can make their production efficiently (NYT 2010), as the manufacturer cannot sell the product at the higher prices than the competitors are selling but through effective management you can actually reduce the cost, so concisely he need to be a master of supply chain management.
Before supply chain management there was effective inventory control system exist but due to some pit falls like; no supply chain metrics, inadequate definition of customer service, , organizational barriers, inaccurate delivery status data, simplistic inventory stocking policies, inefficient information systems, ignoring the impact of uncertainties, and an incomplete view of the supply chain (Teigen 1997). There is a need for another system that have all the competences to deal with all these problems, so the supply chain management is evolved which is not only efficient and effective but also have a good collaborative and communication strategies. Then the evolution of supply chain management activities is started and up till now six phases/era for the development of the supply chain management issues have been seen that are Creation, Integration, and Globalization (Movahedi et al., 2009), Specialization Phases One and Two,