...THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF THE FUTURE As once said by ‘Sir Charles Darwin’ that, “ it is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” We knew that the markets and supply chains are always in a constant state of dynamic change and adaptation. However, we can observe that the rate of change has accelerated to such a point that, the business models that have served us well in the past may no longer work today and will, almost certainly, not work at all tomorrow. We have moved a long way from a business environment where the supplier held the power – say it for the ownership of resources, or technology and brands – to a situation where the customer, or even the consumer, is now in the driving seat of this era’s business environment. Where once it was a ‘seller’s market’, today it is a ‘buyer’s market’. At the same time, the prevailing marketing philosophy has changed from the idea of mass markets serviced by mass production to the idea of ‘markets-of-one’ serviced by mass customization. Even though this shift has been observable for some time, it has not reflected in such needy of thinking about supply chain design. The traditional supply chain business model which we knew from times was based around maximizing efficiencies, through the exploitation of the ‘economies of scale’. So, at that time, factories were designed to produce things in large volumes and to maximize the use of capacity. This...
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...Conclusions and Future Model The auto industry has been a global business for a long time. The last few years how much a problem in just one of those regions, however, can affect everyone in the industry. When assessing the strengths and the weaknesses the most prevalent issues arise around demand for the product and external factors. Demand Risk Demand risk is the downstream equivalent of supply risk and is present on the demand/outbound side of the supply chain. It may be due to an unexpected increase or decrease in customer demand that leads to a mismatch between the firm’s forecast and actual demand. Increase in customer demand leads to depletion of safety stocks, resulting in stock-outs, back orders, and the need to expedite. A fall in customer demand leads to increased costs of holding inventory and, inevitably, price reductions. Other sources of demand risk are dependence on a single customer, customer solvency, and failure of the distribution logistics service provider. External Factors To deal with the large scale disruptions of global auto supply chains caused by the external environment, three critical avenues are open to automotive OEM’s are: 1. Challenging suppliers to develop disaster plans so that they can make provisions to move to alternate sites for production, in the event that they are unable to produce product at their main plant. 2. Eliminating sole-source suppliers, and developing the capabilities of additional companies. Having one supplier...
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...overview of the company’s objectives in operations to include the supply chain. This examination reveals the success behind how the company thrives in times when others are unable. Part of Crocs leading objectives and primary function is to reinvent the supply chain to provide less shortages and increase awareness and customer satisfaction. This paper will outline a brief overview of company history, Crocs two primary core competencies and in which manner do they exploit them; continued evaluation will cover vertical integration, acquisition, or product extension growth. Further discussion consists of company production and inventory as well, as how margins affect their decisions. History and a Foundation for Core Competencies Lyndon Hanson, Scott Seamans, and George Boedecker created Crocs, INC. in 2002 out of Boulder Colorado. The idea came from a trip taken by the three, where one of them had purchase a pair made from a company out of Canada. The decision to start a business selling the shoes was realized after they leased a warehouse in Florida; when sales took off, they contacted Ronald Synder a college friend who which was employed for Flextronics (electronics manufacture) in an executive position. The addition of Snyder was positive as he helped invent their supply chain strategy (Schroeder, Goldstein & Rungtusanatham, 2011). In historical industry practice, it was commonplace to build orders for future dates, this creates issues for retailers, as demand is hard...
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...POMS Abstract Number: 011-0371 Title: Managing Global Food Supply Chain Risks: A Scenario Planning Perspective A. Deep Business School, Loughborough University Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK Email: a.deep@lboro.ac.uk || Phone: +44.1509 223176 S. Dani Business School, Loughborough University Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK Email: s.dani@lboro.ac.uk || Phone: +44.1509228830 POMS 20th Annual Conference Orlando, Florida U.S.A. May 1 to May 4, 2009 Introduction Food is a fundamental requisite for human existence. An agrarian society shows the simplistic form of existence where agriculture forms the core of the society and is the prime means of support and sustenance. That, however, no longer remains the foundation of most of today’s developed economies where food chains are increasingly becoming complex and multi tiered. The chains start with agriculture and ends ultimately, with household consumption. But the numbers of entities between these ends encompass geographical, economic, political and social extremes. This compounded over uncertainty occurring from natural disasters, climate changes, epidemics and terrorist threats place the food supply chain in a particularly vulnerable position. The recent Chinese milk scare which left thousands of Chinese babies ill after consuming melamine tainted milk powder produced by the Chinese Sanlu Group required urgent action by New Zealand, United States and the European Union to issue product warnings to contain the spread of melamine related...
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...the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan in spring 2011 was to bring to the forefront the issues of supply chain venerability. Use the article from the Congressional Research Service for an article review. In your review, discuss how the specific situation could have implications in a broader sense. This article was a great detailed as well as a depressing topic covering the events of the earthquake and hurricane occurrence on March of 2011 at the northeast coast of Japan. This happening was the most powerful natural disaster in Japan’s modern history. Affecting the challenge for Japanese government, businesses, and societies was the resulting ruining of several nuclear reactors in the region which supplied electricity for homes and industry. Located in the disaster expanse are a number of manufacturing facilities which are vital to the global motor vehicle supply chain. These areas took a big hit which was seemed to be preventive in resolution based off the imagery and cost factors of how the end result of the hurricane and earthquake effected those critical locations. These facilities include warehouses that assemble automobiles and many suppliers which build parts and sub-components for vehicles. The effects of these disasters has been first and foremost accepted by Japanese automakers, which closed many of their assembly plants for several weeks as they evaluated their supply chain issues and impact on their essential sub-tier suppliers. Japanese motor vehicle plants in other...
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...Nike needs to consider the welfare of the workers and the profits they are earning. Nike’s future depends on the reconstructing the information that are being sent to customers, suppliers, investors, so that company is sustainable as well as profitable. Changing the rules and regulation is not only enough but they should also engage in transcending leadership and should be able to resolve systematic problems to achieve the goals of the organization. If they don’t make any changes in the financial markets, all their changes are worthless. 1) What are the challenges regarding corporate social responsibility that companies in the apparel industry face in its supply chains around the world? * There were many cases found such as mistreating employees in more than one third of Nike’s south Asian plants. There were also reports claiming most of the factories in the same region didn’t allow access to toilet or to drink water. And in some factories the workers were forced to work all seven days of the week. They were also paid below the minimum and were also punished if they refused to work overtime. They wanted to reconstruct the signals being given out so that they could be sustainable as well as profitable. 2) Discuss the meaning and implications of the statement by a Nike representative that “Consumers are not rewarding us for investments in improved social performance in supply chains.” * Nike started to build the best possible environment in the market by changing the...
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...FEDEX TOWARDS PALM OIL INDUSTRY Core competency identified to be implemented in palm oil industry is Fedex supply chain management and its tracking device CORE COMPETENCY its infrastructure which is hard to imitate- a world wide network of planes trucks ships and hubs need a huge amount of capital. its dedication to innovation and embracing new technologies. – eg, them being the first logistic company to embrace the www as a tool to reach out to customers {attitude}. Like their wireless solution for faster shipping time, allowing customers to track their packages while travelling etc. Plus supply chain management and tracking capabilities. TARGET: GREEN INDUSTRY Solar+ biodiesel = substitutes for fossil burning Why green energy industry? In this presentation we will be focusing on 2 alternatives. Solar and bio-diesel. In support to the relevance of green energy, according to Eye For Transport, surveying 250 north American supply chain executives. The green transportation &logistics report revealed financial(ROI) and public relations are the driving force. 75% of a company‟s carbon print come from logistic and transportation. 6% respondents designate green issues as unimportant While 69% agree that green issues are important to their transport and logistics processes 9% find it as their No.1 priority. Total of 78% find relevance towards green transportation and logistics. Now. It is found greening their T&L process is fundamentally...
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...e-business technology by SMEs. To this end, the paper draws on a range of literatures on the diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), many of which have hitherto been treated as separate. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, e-business technologies are the latest in a line of new ICT technologies. When exploited successfully, ICTs have increased firm competitiveness either by raising the efficiency of internal communication and organisation and/or supply chain relationships, or by facilitating the development of new/improved products and services. Second, it is hypothesised that many of the factors affecting the successful adoption of new technologies are generic in nature. With regards to SMEs specifically, consideration of earlier research may assist us in identifying a set of enablers and barriers to e-business adoption. Hence, by explicitly acknowledging the context and prior history of research in the area, we are able to map out the dimensions of future theoretical and empirical research in e-business adoption by SMEs. In addition to drawing together factors identified by existing research, the paper highlights the implications of network externalities for the timing of technology investments and the returns that accrue to early and late adopters. It also draws attention to a number of problems associated with the analytical concept of ‘the SME’ when it is applied to this area. The research proceeds by clearly defining the technological...
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...decade. In the last 10 years, Wal-Mart has achieved strong and constant growth in sales and net income. It has maintained the leading position in the U.S. discount retail industry and has become the largest retailer in the world. With the maturity of the industry, coupled with the intense competition from rivalry companies, maintaining the current level of high performance becomes very challenging. The Porter’s Five Forces analysis reveals that the competition among rivals is the driving force of the industry, in which price is the most critical factor. The value chain analysis and resource based view analysis show that Wal-Mart has been very successful in implementing the strategy as the low-cost leader by inculcating cost efficiency in its corporate culture, management style, and operations. It has been the pioneer in adopting cutting edge technology to streamline its supply chain, and to understand and respond timely to customer demand. Wal-Mart has developed many strengths that help guard its leading position and open door to many opportunities for expanding the business. However, it also faces threats from growing too big and in many areas, which makes it vulnerable to losing control, weakened cooperation among stores and regions, and competition in multiple fronts. Wal-Mart should be caution in its growth strategy, especially in the expansion of its international presence. Although its financial strength, management skills, and operation efficiency...
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...re-alignment and fleet reductions have helped eliminate over 18m miles from the supply chain since 2005– the same as going to the moon and back 75 times. The savings, which represent an £7m increase on last year, mean Asda remains on course to deliver efficiencies of up to £800m by 2020, it said. Julian Walker-Palin, head of corporate sustainability at Asda, said: “At Asda, our approach to sustainability is based on the belief that protecting the environment and saving people money go hand in hand. After all, wasting resources means wasting money – and we hate waste of any kind. “Since 2005, our work to minimise the environmental impact of our operations has delivered over £80m in savings – which we have invested in delivering lower prices for our customers. Now, through our exchange programme, we can go even further, helping over 300 suppliers find efficiencies in energy, waste and water that can also help keep prices down”. Barry Williams, Asda’s food trading director, said: “The Sustain & Save Exchange is an important Asda programme. We want to work together with our supplier partners so we can learn from each other to increase our efficiencies and resilience to the growing challenges of resource scarcity. “At Asda, we want to build a world class supply base for the future, so we’ll be working with the most proactive suppliers on this agenda to explore how we will continue to support each other for the future. For us, sustainability isn’t about reinventing the wheel – it’s just...
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...A merger occurs when two companies pull their resources together and join as one. With any new acquisition changes will have to be made and they can either be beneficial to a respective industry or have adverse consequences. Kudler Foods is currently in the position to acquire a company which can have both positive and negative effects. In pursuing a vertical merger Kudler Foods will be in position where they will have an increased market share that places them in a position of reduced competition. Current consumers may not necessarily be attracted to this format, however, through new marketing tactics they can attract new consumers and target a broad demographic and also drive in more profits. If Kudler Foods proceeds with this merger it will allow this establishment to put in to play a new strategic direction. One of the benefits of using this strategic business method according to "More-For-Small Business.com" (2002), “it provides you with efficiencies related to economies of scale (from production, inventory, purchasing, sales and marketing, administration perspectives and more)” (vertical merger). Kudler Foods can benefit and exceed in this merger and in this industry by promoting competitive prices, they will be able to add a new dynamic to their stores by having trained personnel in new products and merchandise, and offer equipment to their employees that will allow them to conduct their work in an expedient manner therefore allowing savings and synergies. If Kudler...
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...Our E-Commerce Initiative Eminentleather.com is the online retail store which will be initiated with its existing physical retail store. Eminent Leather proudly presents itself as one of the leading innovative and creative manufacturers of premium quality leather products. Through reflecting the latest trend and fashion, we have built our distinctive image among all the fashion conscious men and women of today. The most competitive price and optimum perfection of our products make us superior to the others operating in this sphere. Apart from our own creativity, we also design as per your specification. Eminent Leather is a leading specialty retailer of quality accessories and outerwear. Currently operating under two formats, we offer fashion and value for both men and women. Categories include handbags, briefcases and travel items. Our e-commerce site offers an extension of our store experience and is intended to increase brand awareness. Unique Features of the Business: Bricks-and-clicks is a business model by which Eminent Leather will integrate both offline (bricks) and online (clicks) presences. In our e-commerce initiative we have some unique features like- ubiquity, global reach, richness, interactivity, information density, personalization, and customization. Those unique features will bring a distinguish business opportunity to attract more consumers and ultimately sell the product to them. The features and how they will increase the business revenue are described...
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...Business as Usual is Not an Option Supply Chains and Sourcing after Rana Plaza Sarah Labowitz and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly April 2014 About the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University Stern School of Business “At NYU Stern, we develop people and ideas that transform the challenges of the 21st century into opportunities to create value for business and society. Our Center for Business and Human Rights is the embodiment of that mission. By creating a safe haven for open dialogue and convening relevant voices for discussion around practical solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems, the Center, and by extension this report, demonstrate that profit and principle can co-exist. ” –Peter Henry, Dean NYU Stern School of Business Dean Henry launched the Center for Business and Human Rights in March 2013 with a strong belief in the power of business to create positive change in society. In that spirit, the Center’s mission is to challenge and empower businesses to make practical progress on human rights in their own operations. It is the first center to focus on human rights as an integral part of a business school. We start from the premise that business can and does work for the good of society. We support the goal of business to create value while emphasizing high standards for human rights performance. Each year, we take on a major project around a set of human rights challenges in a sector that is of foremost concern for companies, consumers...
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...The growing popularity of downloading music from the internet definitely gives rise to a new music industry value chain that differs from the traditional value chain. With the invention of the iPod and other portable mp3 players, there has been a considerable increase in music downloads. Instead of buying the whole CD, consumers prefer to buy the song they want online. Having the ability to purchase just the songs you want compared to paying the full price of the CD is what causes the consumers to lean more toward downloading. Another reason is that with the more gadgets being invented, it is easier to place all your music on one device to listen to, instead of carrying around a bunch of bulky CDs which basically would cause a lot of inconvenience. The process of downloading music versus selling from brick-and-mortar businesses alters all the parts of the value chain including supplier-related value chains, the company’s own value chain and forward channel value chains. However, the most affected link, I think, is the company’s own value chain. With the music being available and downloadable online, production cost is expected to decrease for costs associated with pressing and packaging of CDs would be eliminated. If the recording studios begin to sell the downloadable files themselves, the production cost is substantially reduced since the cost for pressing and packaging of CDs would be eliminated from it. Also, manufacturing cost would be completely eliminated since they...
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...Compare and contrast the pre-1995 Lucent supply chain to the 1996-2000 supply chain with respect to the focus and structure of each. Identify what you believe to be the key factors that necessitated the changes that Lucent made. Did the changes make sense from a strategic perspective? In the pre 1995 Lucent’s supply chain, most of the Asian production was manufactured in Oklahoma City. The focus was on USA customers and business from Asia was not significant, therefore there were no manufacturing facilities set up in Asia. Lucent formed joint ventures with telecommunications-related companies across Asia to facilitate market entry into Asian markets. The focus was on the market entry strategy and not manufacturing. These joint ventures performed only final assembly and testing for customers in the countries in which the joint venture is located. The joint ventures had little or no production capabilities. However, for the 96-2000 supply chain, as there was huge growth of communications infrastructures in Asia, the Lucent also had to focus on Asia customers due to the amount of business opportunities. The manufacturing structure was changed such that custom engineering and manufacturing of Asian orders would be done in Taiwan. In addition, the joint ventures also manufacture their own circuit pack and outsourced the production of low volume level circuit packs. The ordering process was also different. In pre-95 supply chain, countries with local joint ventures companies...
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