Distribution management

Web-based software and e-market places have increased opportunities available to e-supply chain managers in all operations inclnding the service industry. 

Information technology and the Internet has improved the access to information, enabled cnrrency transactions, and improved data accuracy. However the real effectiveness of supply chain management is the physical movanent of materials from source to customer. Important components for every e-commerce, on-line trading and virtual supply chain are factories, warehouses and transport. 

It is vital that a physical distribution process is in place to ensure the performance of e-snpply chain for both virtual and physical activities, but it is well recognized that supply chain order fulfilment is the Achilles heel of the e-business economy. 

This building block, distribution management addresses the challenge of distribution efficiency under three headings  

In the same way that enterprise resource planning (ERP) is concerned with information flow, supphers and inbound logistics, distribution management is 

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Deliver processes that provide finished goods and services to meet planned or actual demand, typically including order management, transportation management, and distribution management. 

Distribution management is responsible for planning and executing distribution to local subsidiaries and customers and for regularly reviewing and optimizing the distribution network. 

According to the Healthcare Distribution Management Association (HDMA—formerly the National Wholesale Druggists Association), there are thousands of wholesalers. Fewer than a half dozen are responsible for a majority of sales. These full-line or full-service wholesalers obtain medications directly from the manufacturers and distribute the medications to pharmacies (both independent and chains), institutions, and other wholesalers. Some chain pharmacies have regional or local distribution centers that receive medications from the wholesaler in large quantities and repackage the medications into package sizes that are more feasible at the store level. 

The program continued and Penney invited DuPont s Photo Products Distribution Manager to visit the system as it was being tested. He was very impressed, and thought it might help the company broadly. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm could not be converted into a new product opportunity for DuPont. A patent subsequently issued. 

National Conference of Pharmaceutical Organizations (NCPO) c/o Healthcare Distribution Management Association (HDMA) Reston, VA 20190-5348 Phone (703) 787-0000 Fax (703) 787-6930 Web site www.nacds.org... 

Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF) Common information model, CIM (2006), http //www.dmtf.org/standards/cim/... 

Chemical Distribution Management must become the master of two contending forces—creativity and control. Its opportunities to exercise creativity are likely to take place in three major categories (1) materials handling, (2) transportation modes and (3) systems. 

Materials Handling—Packaging, Handling, Storing, and Loading. The distribution manager must participate in a continuous search of the dynamic partnership between the manufacturing processes and the total physical distribution systems of his company in order to optimize both... 

Systems—Information, Operational Control, and Cost Control. The distribution manager must be able to conceive and implement those systems which will integrate and relate his company s material handling activities with the external modes. As he watches cost pressures mount on the disparate parts of these operations, he will find that a recognition and integration of the total process can give his company an improved unit cost of the delivered material. 

Distribution management s ability to grasp and relate these total materials handling movements will enable it to recommend containers, equipment designs, operational procedures, and other systems which will enhance the total materials flow characteristics of the product. Its tools will be new concepts, new packaging and containerization, new specialized handling equipment, and new information systems. 

But people will not let the computer in on all the games they play, so negotiation and distribution management should still be fun. 

The Distribution Manager, driving the four horses of Creativity and Control, Business, and Technology, must become the master of them all. He must integrate their efforts into the total materials flow concept —a concept whereby he sees his company as a part of a continuous flow system from its vendors to its customers. As part of the continuous process, automation-instrumentation conscious chemical industry, he starts with important traditions and assets. He will be concerned with integration, systemization, and acceleration. 

Systemization. The Distribution Manager must relate the creative, kaleidoscopic activities of chemicals physical distribution with information concepts, systems, and hardware to achieve appropriate control. The Distribution Manager who masters this very complex simultaneous equation will achieve for his company a continuous flow network with the end costs of the delivered material progressively improving. The most complex and challenging system which the Distribution Manager will need to develop will be himself and his people organization. 

Acceleration. As new concepts and developments appear, in and out of the distribution function, events will bear faster on the Distribution Manager. He must accelerate his own managerial processes as well as the physical distribution flow of which he is the steward. 

Femie, J. (1990), Retail Distribution Management, Kogan Page, London. 

Productivity Accountability for performance in distribution must be increased. Distribution management must establish standards, identify opportunities for improvement, measure performance, and take action to ensure continuous distribution improvement. The entire distribution function must realize that productivity must be increased. The option of maintaining the status quo is totally unacceptable. The improvement of distribution productivity includes labor productivity, but it goes well beyond labor productivity. 

Martin, A. J. (1990), DRP Distribution Resource Planning Distribution Management s Most Powerful Tool, 2nd Ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and Oliver Wright, Essex Junction, VT. 

Temple, Barker, and Sloane, Inc. (1982), Transportation Strategies for the Eighties, National Council of Physical Distribution Management, Oak Brook, IL, p. 6. 

Heskett, J. L. (1963), Cube-per-Order Index—A Key to Warehouse Stock Location, Transportation and Distribution Management, Vol. 3, pp. 27-31. 

Figure 8 Cost Trade-offs Required in Marketing and Logistics. (From D. M. Lambert, The Development of an Inventorry Costing Methodology A Study of the Cost Associated with Holding Inventory, National Coundl of Physical Distribution Management, Chicago, 1976. Reprinted with...

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