Thinking cloud-enabled adept and agile supply chain for SMEs: a conceptual study

摘要

Cloud computing sustains the rising era of internet technologies through service paradigm for software, platform and infrastructure. 1 his article explores the role of information technology (IT) and cloud enabled services to improve triumph and productivity of supply chain. The concept discusses how small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) can achieve adept and agile supply chain by expediency of on-demand and on-premise cloud model. The hybrid cloud supports information system as 'platform as a service", supply chain functional applications as 'software as a service' and other resources like storage, processing capabilities and data centres in the form of 'infrastructure as a service'. The performance metrics are compared with existing collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) benchmark model. An industrial case represents feasibility of the proposed model with improved performance, security and costs. It also discusses how SMEs can adopt this model to optimise value chain, IT resources and response time.