JMGT_V3_N4_RP5 Paivi Iskanius Tom Page Journal on Management 2230 – 715X 3 4 47 54 Order-delivery Process, Steel Industry, Supply Chain Management Economic globalization and new competitive demands have strongly increased the need for companies to develop collaboration in manufacturing processes. This situation in industrial competition emphasizes the importance of cost, quality and time, based on customer-oriented operation modes. The situation provides limited possibilities for individual companies to improve their competitiveness. As companies continuously seek to provide their products and services to customer faster, cheaper, and better than the competition, they have to work on a cooperative basis with the best companies in their supply chains in order to succeed. The purpose of this paper is to present the steel product industry network in Raahe region in Finland. It is done in terms of its activities and modes of supply chain operations, based on customer-oriented operation modes. However, the purpose is to analyse the relationship of the manufacturing development concepts like agility, flexibility, and leanness. The critical issues and major drawbacks of supply chain are identified and illustrated by following one sample order-delivery process through its value chain. March - May 2009 Copyright © 2009 i-manager publications. All rights reserved. i-manager Publications http://www.imanagerpublications.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=200