Abstract
With the dramatic increase in demand for steel materials by many foreign countries, especially by China, the supply for steel materials have become more limited than ever before, and this trend is expected to continue for sometime. Therefore many steel companies try to introduce SCM (Supply Chain Management) to respond timely and precisely to market movements.
The objective of SCM is to maximize the operation efficiency covering the entire process of a supply chain. There are two necessary conditions for applying SCM between several companies. One is that the basic idea of SCM is owned jointly by each company, The other is to create a data base containing records for evaluating SCM. Recently, information technology has developed enough to establish such an information system.Toyokohan has promoted SCM since 2002. Until now, we have established a consistent production and material procurement system. Both systems have performed very well so far.
As for the next step of promoting SCM, we have developed a new business support system for sales, purchasing and production control departments. This system can provide important and necessary information for SCM and support activities of these departments.
