Relational Approaches Regarding Functions And Processes Within The Supply Chain Management

The effective management of the supply-delivery chain ensures the necessary quantity of goods and services where needed, at the right time, in the required quantity and at the best price. To this end, simply put, the supplydelivery chain is defined as an umbrella process under which products are created and delivered to the customers. The management of the supply-delivery chain ensures the improvement of the management of the fluxes which begin with the supplier of the supplier and end with the customer of the customer. There are Physical fluxes circulating between the partners who make up the supply-delivery chain, which are oriented from uphill to downhill (there are also physical fluxes oriented towards the financial fluxes which are oriented from downhill to uphill, and the fluxes of information which circulate both ways, preceding, accompanying or following the physical and financial fluxes). The current economic circumstances require from firms short term objectives, such as the downsizing of stockpiles, the increase of income combined with the maintaining of constant fixed expenditure, the improvement of performance. In the current article we briefly present, under a relational aspect, the functional structures or the components of the supply-delivery chain and some related processes which play a fundamental role in the effective functioning of partners interconnected in business processes.