Activity System

CIOP sessions are conducted by a pool of faculties who also offer the other international certification programs. The typical faculties are having experience between 20 to 30 years in the domains of procurement and supply chain and have a wealth of industry and teaching experience. All of them have great passion for teaching and believes in continuous learning and sharing those learnings. The faculties also go through periodic trainings titled “Faculty Development Programs” to keep them abreast with the latest developments in supply chain and teaching methodologies. Basically, all the faculties are practitioners or consultants who work for the industry and teach supply chain during their spare time or execute this as a project.

Activity System is a unique new concept in the warehousing and supply chain management industry. In an economic perspective, activity system is the lowest unit of measurement for knowing human activities. 

The units of an activity system are the subject (the person or group that is acted on and the object from whose point of view it is measured) and the objects (the items that are produced or acquired and the means of procuring these goods or services). An activity system helps to understand the human factor involved in the supply chain as it identifies how production, acquisition or production process happens.

The activity theory of G. W. Winnicott highlights the importance of human activities as determining the relations among them. It also shows that there is a qualitative aspect to human activities which can be studied theoretically. This aspect has been called by economists an objective aspect of social life. According to the economists the only possible knowledge of a reality is the knowledge of the relations among human actions. Activity theory therefore postulates that there are three important relationships among human actions namely, cause and effect, relationship between knowledge and action and expectations and value.

The purpose of an activity system is to build or re-build the organizational core capabilities by improving and streamlining the production process. This involves reorganizing the whole organization structure to create a more flexible working model. Such action improves the ability of the enterprise to respond to competitive threats by evolving strategies to counteract these challenges. It is estimated that such activity systems have a direct and long-term impact on the organization's core capabilities.

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