Manufacturing Chain
is what this has been called since manufacturing.
Digital thread is people selling new manufacturing ideology jargon.
This is the 2018 version of lean chain or agile chain or whatever naming and grouping flavor of the week is.
Supply chain is hard and never simple groups like they depict.
Even the simplest representations tend to look something like this:
because they are so complicated, and there are so many advantages to getting a handle on every link of your supply chain, every organization benefits from a standardized system. Every few years someone is selling a new one. Like coding frameworks: some do have certain advantages, the more specific ones work better. the ones that promise simplicity that doesn’t exist and throw around jargon and ideology over favoring what simply works tend to come and go making a bunch of consultants rich and ready to ride the next wave.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ meh…
Yeah… DIGITAL thread? they are talking about linking physical groups and processes, and sure they are using computers, but what and who doesn’t now days? the digital moniker and substituting thread for the typical term chain immediately indicates the value choices of the systems creators and exactly which sort of system this is.
