**2.1 Overview**

Supply chain encompasses the end-to-end flow, including the physical and correlated data flow of raw material, products, information, and money. It plays a unique and critical role in businesses and determines the performance of organizations. Supply chain manages or is involved in sourcing, procurement, manufacturing, distribution, and logistics, and, thus, affects speed-to-market, the cost of a product, service perception, and capital requirements in businesses [16]. Supply chain integrates a set of fragmented and often geographically discrete processes into a cohesive system to deliver value to the customer. The core functions and operations of a typical supply chain network are illustrated in **Figure 1**.
