Clearly, the interest in value chains is not new. In Industrial Engineering, however, the primary focus has been on achieving operational efficiency – leading to a focus on production operations and supply chains. There are a number of significant trends that are now driving the need for operations oriented analysis from a value chain perspective
• Increasing competition and an increasing focus on innovation as an element of strategy
• Evolving governance models for the extended enterprise
• The trend towards globalization of supply and production
• Benefits already wrung out of manufacturing and the supply chain
• Trends in Management Discourse