A. Push or pull view of supply chain.

Processes in a supply chain are divided into two categories depending on whether they are executed in response to a customer order (pull) or in anticipation of a customer order (push). Push and pull boundary separates both the processes. The diagram depicts the push and pull boundary.

A. Push view of supply chain

As push view depends on the speculation of customer demand it tries to push as many products into the market. In this they take lot of time to react to the changes in the market. Forecast plays vital role in push view. Long term forecasting helps the company to manufacture optimum level of products. The speculative nature of the push process results in high production cost, high inventory cost and high transportation cost because firm would like to have buffer at every stage.

Supply chain integration in push view:

Manager of firm based on push view sometime unable to meet changing demand pattern. For example a textile company manufacturer’s huge apparel thinking that style will stay longer and try to push that style into the market. Suddenly the style become obsolete and people prefer new style. The information reaches to the company little later. Result in longer lead time. When the firms try to push the product in downstream order required at each level varies. This information distortion in supply chain is known as bullwhip effect.. Push process result in high inventory and high size of batches. here company try to emphasize on reducing the cost of supply chain and forget the responsiveness. The push view also poses challenges to demand management and transportation management.

B. Pull view of Supply chain

In pull process of supply chain demand is real and firms react to the demand. It helps company to produce required number of products. Pull system has drawback if there is excess demand from the customer and company do not have capacity result in loss of opportunity cost. The lead time in the pull view of supply chain is less.

Supply chain Integration in pull view.

Production and distribution in the firm are depending on the demand. Firm is having reactive supply chain in this view. Thus it is having fewer inventories and less variability. It reduces the lead time in the entire process. The biggest drawback of this view is it can’t reduce the cost by scaling up the production and operations.

The difference between push and pull view of supply chain

Sl. No	Push View	Pull view
1	Execution initiated in anticipation of customer order	Execution initiated in response to customer order
2	Demand is uncertain	Demand is certain
3	Speculative process	Reactive process
4	High complexity	Low complexity
5	Focus on resource allocation	Focus on responsiveness
6	Long lead time	Short lead time
7	Helps in supply chain planning	Helps in order full fillment
8	Objective is to minimize the cost	Objective is to maximize the service