Multinationals are becoming more risk-averse and biased towards direct control over assets in their network. We are currently moving into the third era of global supply chain transformation that has occurred within the last 100 years. The first era of supply chain globalization was the era of vertical integration, best exemplified by The Ford Motor Company, which was perhaps the first and largest truly global industrial corporation. The way in which it organized its production and supply chain as a completely vertically integrated system in the early 1920s set the stage for many practices used by the modern corporation. It owned the entire production process: manufacturing/assembly plants in the United States, Japan, Ireland, Argentina and Denmark; lumber camps in Michigan, Brazil and Malaysia; intermodal transportation assets such as railroads, steamship lines and freighter vessels; and even airports to handle its own fleet of small planes delivering parts and administrative paperwork all over the U.S.
展开▼
