No enterprise is an island. Goods and services flow in from suppliers. Processes, knowledge and expertise are applied to create value-added offerings that are sold to customers who add further value to create other goods and services that are, in turn, sold to other customers and so on through to the final consumer. When you include suppliers of wares for raw material extractors, along with recyclers that turn consumer and commercial waste into new raw materials and finished goods, it is a supply chain with no beginning and no end.

Companies work hard to optimize internal efficiencies, but that does not address the entire cost structure. The supply chain also imposes considerable expenses. Historically, these costs were largely accepted as being beyond the enterprise's control. That is changing. Increasingly, businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations realize that a seamless and efficient supply chain is a critical success factor.

This paper examines the issues of supply chain communications with an emphasis on a common paradigm, "the perfect order." The perfect order is not something tangible. It is an archetype of flawless, optimally efficient, end-to-end interactions among supply chain partners. Those interactions are iterative and two-way: Buyers place orders with suppliers; suppliers send goods, bills-of-lading and invoices to customers; and buyers send back payments. A flaw at any stage results in imperfect order completion. A delay may result in a stock-out for the business and an interruption of cash flow for the supplier. As in any endeavor, perfection is an objective that can rarely be realized, but defining the model of the perfect order allows us to identify its parameters and challenges and to work toward coming as close as possible to attaining the ultimate goal.