Supply Chain Management Methods

In the beginning, there was life. It consisted of man, of animal, and of plant, intertwining them in a world which protected their offspring, nourished their habitats, helped them thrive, and sustained their future. Each animal had his place, each plant had its purpose, and each man had his sense of belonging within the system. Everything was in the right place, in the right number, at the right time. Early man lived in a world we would call uncivilized, unkempt, unrefined, even barbaric; yet he fit within this natural balance of life in perfect symphonic harmony. He was suited for the system, and he didn’t argue his place within it. 

However, as civilizations arose, prospered, and withered away, the foundation of societal structure evolved and was refined from generation to generation. Man was beginning to surpass the animal in psychological ways unparalleled in history; he began to understand not only his existence but also to question his knowledge and his natural surroundings. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans each surpassed the other in war, power, knowledge, social order, and command over the environment, leading man further and further from a world run by nature and the laws of the animal hierarchy to a world strictly ruled by man alone. In the 19th century, the stirrings of the Industrial Revolution catapulted society into a blossoming era of rapid transition and burgeoning technology, finally severing the last ties between man and nature. Man stopped realizing that he, too, was part of the unique and beautiful system of earth, and found himself in a fabricated industrial world of his own making. 

From a simple time when man carted his own dinner to the table to the “machine age” which launched mankind into a world where perfect saran-wrapped steaks appear magically on the shelf at the grocery store, how did we ever survive this transformation in so short a time? And more importantly, why did it happen?