Supply Chain Management involves the strategic integration of diverse business facilities, functions, and activities throughout the supply chain for the purpose of providing goods and services to customers as efficiently as possible. Achieving efficiency in the supply chain is accomplished by developing knowledge of transportation, inventory control, warehousing, material handling, purchasing, production control, and the tools necessary to analyze and coordinate these activities. The concept of total cost analysis (taking all costs into account before making decisions), and cost trade-offs (letting one or more costs rise to take advantage of greater savings in other costs) is also central to supply chain management. These concepts, once honed, apply to many facets of business and personal decision making.