The role of the Internet in supply chain management

The Internet has grown rapidly over the last 5 years. It is predicted that more than 100 million households will be connected to the World Wide Web by 2002. But what about the use of the Internet in business-to-business supply chain applications? Here, the greatest potential of the Internet is being realized by speeding up communication between customers and their suppliers, improving service levels, and reducing logistics costs. In this article, the authors discuss for the first time how the Internet is being used in managing the major components of supply chains including transportation, purchasing, inventory management, customer service, production scheduling, warehousing, and vendor relations. The study breaks down each area and describes to what extent and how the Internet is being applied. The study also looks at the development of Intranets and Extranets in supply chains. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.