Improving the global supply chain through service engineering: A services science, management, and engineering-based framework

Great changes within the business environment in the last 2 decades have made supply chain management (SCM) an important topic for academics and practitioners. Globalization, larger reliance on layered suppliers for specialized capabilities and innovation, changing customer needs, reliance on supply networks to maintain a competitive advantage, and developments in technology have all contributed to a very different supply chain environment. Most current works view customers as being outside the supply chain design; however, we believe that customers are the missing link in the supply chain. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on the customer's role in the process. We present an original discussion of the emerging discipline of services science, management, and engineering (SSME) in SCM, identify and bridge the gaps between SSME and SCM, as well as discuss ways to align them. In addition, we consider the specific challenges as well as the opportunities for SSME in supply chain management.