Volume 19, Number 1 Article by Rohit Nishant and Mohammad Illyas Sharief March, 2007
Road Information System: A Step Forward in Supply Chain Management in India :
Globalisation and liberalisation have brought a sea change in the way business is carried out. Instead of going in for vertical integration, original equipment manufacturers have started concentrating on their core competencies and outsourcing other components and services, and organisations are spending on software and new technologies for the seamless integration of the supply chain and to increase overall supply chain profitability. One such technological development, which has been in use in developed countries for over 30 years for routing decisions, town planning, etc, is the Geographical Information System (GIS). In India, although several large companies have been using GIS, its penetration has not been to the desired level, primarily due to the high costs involved. This situation may change as the National Highway Authority of India has launched a web based integrated Road Information System (RIS), coupled with GIS.
This student essay, which won the Third Prize in the IIMB Management Review Student Essay Competition, 2006, is an attempt to address supply chain management from the information perspective and discuss how technology like RIS will affect one of the critical drivers for the performance of supply chain i e, information. Rohit Nishant and Mohammad Illyas also suggest some potential uses of this initiative. If RIS can be extended to provide multi-modal transport solutions, it can serve as a complete tool for routing. It can also serve as a model for developing a nation-wide GIS system with micro-details, including demographic information, on every part of the country, which can be used by the government for town planning and planned infrastructure development. The government however needs to come up with a comprehensive national spatial policy to address issues of security and information sharing.
Reprint No 07102
