Importance of Supply Chain in Service Industry.

[Moez]

We know that Supply chain definitely can add value to manufacturing
industries.
As service industries continue to expand, how much can supply chain
help ?

[metin]

All of the services require some products and equipment to be
delivered. Doctors need medical supplies, teachers need book/
articles, information system consultants need hardware, so on. Supply
chains are great help in complementary supplies while delivering the
services.

In other service industries, there also are supply chains. Think of a
financial supply chain, which can connect a rating agency, mortgage
initiator, consumer bank, investment bank, risk management company,
federal reserve. These organizations are all parts of closely
integrated financial chain. The issue of conflict of interest among
these parties arise often. Coming up policies to avoid the conflicts
and to integrate these organizations is a big challenge. We can draw
from the supply chain concept of intelligent decomposition for
integration.

Similar comments apply to healthcare supply chain. There are
hospitals, clinics, chemical/biological labs, insurance companies.
Think of the conflict of interest and integration issues.

My comments do not answer the how much question but they at least are
convincing that supply chains remain to be relevant in service
industries.

Metin