Keith Oliver

Keith Oliver is a British top logistician and consultant famous for coining the terms "Supply Chain" and "Supply Chain Management" first using them in public in an interview with Arnold Kransdorff of the Financial Times on 4 June 1982.

Keith Oliver was educated in the United Kingdom at Monmouth School and holds an honours degree from Birmingham University. He is currently on the staff of the management consulting firms, Booz & Company / Booz Allen Hamilton and worked previously as Senior Organizations and Methods Analyst to the West Midlands Gas Board, and then as a consultant for Business Operations Research (Systems) Limited. According to Damon Schechter, Oliver played a critical role in ushering in the third significant evolution of logistical thought in the 1970s and 1980s and has contributed as author and co-author of numerous articles and the chapter entitled: "Distribution: the total cost-to serve" in The Gower Handbook of Management (1983 - 1998).

A 2003 article in a Strategy+Business Issue named When Will Supply Chain Management Grow Up? by Tim Laseter and Keith Oliver himself describes anecdotically the moment in which the term Supply Chain Management was coined prior to the Financial Times interview: Oliver began to develop a vision to tear down the functional silos inside an organization (manufacturing, marketing, distribution, sales and finance). He and his team called it Integrated Inventory Management, abbreviated I2M in the late 70's. They believed that the term was catchy and the I2M acronym would be well received, but it all changed during a key steering committee meeting with Dutch electronics giant Philips. At the meeting, he and his team found out that their catchy phrase was not that catchy, and Oliver was challenged by one of the customer's managers: Mr. Van t'Hoff. Oliver explained Mr. Van t'Hoff what he meant by I2M: “We’re talking about the management of a chain of supply as though it were a single entity,” Mr. Oliver replied, “not a group of disparate functions.” “Then why don’t you call it that?” Mr. Van t’Hoff said. “Call it what?” Mr. Oliver asked. “Total supply chain management.”

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