Logistics has it's focus on material handling, stocks, and movements in one part of the supply chain, or maximum the movements from suppler to you to customer. It's aim is to maximize profits, minimize costs and improve customer service for ONE actor in the chain.Supply chain management had a broader view, and focuses on the total value chain (from seed, to flower, to bread, to consumption, for instance), and tries to optimize the total value added by the chain.

SCM has the production element, while logistics focuses on flow and storage of material. Production is considered manufacturing which is different from value added production such as kitting. So, logistics is a part of SCM. Logistics is the part of SCM dealing with everything except production. There is specialization required for production that most logisticians do not possess. This is generally left to the industrial engineers. The argument could be made for logistics containing production - because the flow of material could be through the factory.

MIT's definition is integrated supply chain mangement is a process-orientated, integrated approach to procuring, producing, and delivering products and services to customers. ISCM has a broad scope that includes sub-suppliers, suppliers, internal operations, trade customers, retail customers, and end users. It covers the management of material, information, and funds flows."

(Dymystifying Supply chain Management by Peter J Metz from Supply Chain Management Review Winter 1998)

"A supply chain is a network of facilities and distribution options that performs the functions of procurement of materials, transformation of these materials into intermediate and finished products, and the distirbution of these finished products to customers."

From Ganeshan and Harrison, Supply Chain Management

The Issues

Supply-chain management is a generic term that encompasses the coordination of order generation, order taking, and offer fulfillment/distribution of products, services, or information. Numerous, independent firms and customers are involved in a supply chain (e.g., manufacturers and parts suppliers; parcel shippers, senders and receivers; wholesalers and retailers).

The supply chain has also been called the value chain and the service chain, depending on the "fad of the moment", or sometimes, we think, the weather, or sun spot activity. Just like anything else, supply chain management is no panacea, nor should it be embraced as a religion. It is an operational strategy that, if implemented properly, will provide a new dimension to competing: quickly introducing new customerized high quality products and delivering them with unprecedented lead times, swift decisions, and manufacturing products with high velocity. Software companies have jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to claim SCM as their own. Information transfer is critical to swiftly moving parts through the chain of processes, but information is only one of six key elements.