Vendor-managed inventory forges supply-chain links: chemical suppliers find value in linking delivery processes with those of customers. (Formulating & Processing).

Adhesives Age, April, 2003 by Nicholas Basta

VENDOR-mANAGED inventory (VMI) is suddenly hot. Many of the blue chip software companies have been routing grand--and somewhat grandiose--visions of vast linkages of suppliers, manufacturers, customers, all connected digitally. So when a retail customer's decision to buy, say, a can of paint ripples through a global network, it results in adjustments in petrochemical plants in the Middle East, ocean tankers in the middle of the Atlantic, production schedules in the Houston Ship Channel, and railcars in the Midwest.

To a certain degree, these networks are forming up, especially among multi-product, multinational organizations that have fleets of ships, trucks or railcars circulating from nation to nation. But they are a tougher proposition for smaller, specialty...