**2.1. Supply chain management**

A SC exists if at least two companies work together to the production of a particular product or service. If this association is explicitly guided to improve the performance then we describe this as supply chain management, also called SCM.

From a general point of view, the SCM can be defined as the coordination between companies internal and external activities. The goal of this management is to improve the SC performance on long term basis so that each actor of the SC can take benefit of this global management.

The SCM consists of managing the whole organizations involved in the delivery of a final product or service. Its aim is, on one hand, to produce products relying on information received from the customer needs and, on the other hand, to minimize the different supply, production, warehousing and delivery costs. The SCM gathers two parts: the integration of the company along the SC and the coordination between the physical, information and financial flows.

The main objective of the SCM is to improve the competitiveness of companies by minimizing the costs while the quality of service required by the customer is guaranteed.
