Supply Chain Engineering in China’s Retailing Industry: A Case of Meiyijia

Abstract

This paper addresses the supply chain engineering and its application in China’s retailing industry. Based on the approaches of systems engineering, we propose the concept of supply chain engineering, which applies the idea of supply chain management to the engineering practices through the advanced information and management technology, to integrate the supply chain system and optimize its operations. We then illustrate the application of the supply chain engineering in China’s retailing industry. In such practices, we developed the virtual retailing enterprise mode and the FROM-SCM system, and designed the sales assistant etc. Such theory and practices are successfully applied in Meiyijia, which has transformed Meiyijia from a traditional retailer to a modern service enterprise, and the profits are resulted from the service fees rather than the traditional surplus between buying and selling prices. Now Meiyijia has built an ecosystem with the retailer in the core, the headquarter as the service platform. The success of Meiyijia in recent years shows the effectiveness of the supply chain engineering.