A supply chain network is a collection of facilities through which business entities such as suppliers, manufacturing plants, distributors, and retailers work together to

- procure raw material
- transform the raw materials into value-added products, and
- distribute the products to the customers .

Supply chain networks are at the centrestage of business performance of manufacturing and service organizations.

At LCM, research in the area of supply chain management is aimed at originating modeling methodologies that can help identify and innovate strategies for designing and improving supply chain networks.

DESSCOM

-- Decision Support for Supply Chains through Object Modeling DESSCOM is an evolving software tool that enables strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making in supply chains. DESSCOM has two subsystems:

1. A modeling system that facilitaties rapid creation of supply chain models at a desired level of abstraction using a library of generic objects

1. A decision workbench that can support a wide variety of tools and techniques for deployment in supply chain problem solving