...of information technology. This has enhanced the speed of obtaining and sharing of information between the supply chain partners and consequently increased the level of collaboration within the traditional distribution channel. This process was accelerated with the Internet and worldwide web explosion. With this arrangement, managers were able to reduce non-value-added services, duplication, and redundancy between the consecutive stages of order fulfillment process. Moreover the managers began to believe that such sharing could beneficial for the partners. These efforts to extend and leverage the operating range of the individual firms have propelled the manifestation of collaborative supply chains. This transformation has been so rapid and abrupt that it could be labeled as a revolution. 2. Compare the concept of a modern supply chain with more traditional distribution channels. Be specific regarding similarities and differences. Traditional distribution channels typically had an order fulfillment time of 15-30 days. But if something went wrong, this time would increase dramatically. It was a common practice to maintain inventory at every stage of the supply chain like retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. The market was characterized by scarcity to the primary goal of traditional model was to ensure availability of products. However today customers want more options in product offerings. Modern supply chain is geared towards meeting...
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...of information technology. This has enhanced the speed of obtaining and sharing of information between the supply chain partners and consequently increased the level of collaboration within the traditional distribution channel. This process was accelerated with the Internet and worldwide web explosion. With this arrangement, managers were able to reduce non-value-added services, duplication, and redundancy between the consecutive stages of order fulfillment process. Moreover the managers began to believe that such sharing could beneficial for the partners. These efforts to extend and leverage the operating range of the individual firms have propelled the manifestation of collaborative supply chains. This transformation has been so rapid and abrupt that it could be labeled as a revolution. 2. Compare the concept of a modern supply chain with more traditional distribution channels. Be specific regarding similarities and differences. Traditional distribution channels typically had an order fulfillment time of 15-30 days. But if something went wrong, this time would increase dramatically. It was a common practice to maintain inventory at every stage of the supply chain like retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. The market was characterized by scarcity to the primary goal of traditional model was to ensure availability of products. However today customers want more options in product offerings. Modern supply chain is geared towards meeting...
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...have invested a significant amount of time and personal savings into Want beverages. They want to build a business that is strong and profitable on a long-term basis. Thus, if Want is successful, they can benefit from the profits earned and success of the business. In contrast, the Moffats could lose considerable amounts of money and time if the company fails to become profitable. Bill and Angela also face the risk of having two unprofitable businesses by ineffectively managing both Want and Spellbound. It is possible that they may prioritize a substantial amount of effort and resources to stabilize Want, while disregarding their focus and responsibilities in operating Spellbound. This could prove to be an underlying downfall because if Want ultimately fails after concentrating their effort for growth, the Moffats could suffer with two unstable businesses. Decision Criteria 1. Increasing sales to a level that ensures long-term success 2. Maintaining flexible production capacity and inventory levels 3. Increasing brand awareness among target market 4. Stay aligned with goals of corporate social responsibility 4 Internal Analysis: Strengths Want successfully differentiates itself from its competitors through features such as taste, design, and packaging. Want’s relationship with its bottle...
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...We discussed the flow of Inventory, and as you can imagine this is important to us being able to meet our customer expectations. Based on the materials covered, what method you feel is the best for managing flows of inventories. Inventory management is a criterion which is used to look after the flow of products and services in and out of an organization A company can operate with just one way of managing inventory or they can go for combination of inventory management methods depends upon the nature and amount of inventories. Businesses utilize inventory management strategies to create invoices and purchase orders, generate receipts and control inventory-related accounting. Just in time is a popular method of inventory control and management for a manufacturing concern. The concept behind this type of inventory control is that, the delivery of the inventory happens at the time of production and not earlier. It also delivers the exact amount of inventory that can be used for production, not more. JIT very much depend on the supply chain of a company because non availability of inventory will affect the process of production very badly. Some of the advantages of using just in time delivery are the following * Low warehousing costs. Since the inventory is not stored in Just in Time method, the expenditures on maintaining the inventory in the warehouse of the company can be eliminated. * Effective and efficient Supply Chain Management This method will make sure that...
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...Chapter 5 Theory of Constraints What You Will Find Out About in This Chapter The importance of managing system throughput The differences between cost-world orientation and throughput orientation The importance, and often the difficulty, of identifying constraints The five-step process of constraint management The circumstances in which the theory of constraints is valuable in increasing throughput How throughput accounting and appropriate performance measures can encourage a throughput emphasis Management Accounting for Change: Process Improvement and Innovation 5.1 INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................85 5.2 MANAGING PROCESS THROUGHPUT ....................................................................................................85 5.2.1 Defining TOC...........................................................................................................................................86 5.3 NATURE OF THE ‘GLOBAL GOAL’ VS LOCAL PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT ........................87 5.3.1 The Global Goal .......................................................................................................................................87 5.3.2 Local Performance Measurement .............................................................................................................87 5.3.3 Conflicts Between Local Performance and the Global...
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...controls ensuring consistently good performance. c) It supports continuous improvement by providing managers with new insights into value adding and non-value adding activities and business processes 2. Why managing operations and activities is not a custodial task? Managing operations and activities is a continuous improvement process rather than being a custodial task. A structured approach to continual improvement is shown in the figure below: 3. How activity-based costing works with activity-based management? ABC is not a method of costing, but a technique which measures the cost and performance of activities, resources and the objects which consume them in order to generate more accurate and meaningful information for decision-making. It helps in gaining a thorough understanding of the business processes and cost behaviour. ABM, on the other hand, utilizes this information to manage activities and make informed decisions about lines of business, product mix, processes and product design. 4. What is a non-value-added activity? What is the process of identifying it? By definition, non-value-added activity is an activity that can be eliminated with no deterioration of product attributes. Product attributes can be performance, functionality, quality, delivery, perceived value as per the customer. Few instances of non-value-added activities are as stated in the image...
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...simple terms, along with the product, product information and usage information should be provided with the product. In addition to this, to maintain customer retention and satisfaction, there should be a system of exchange or return if desired by the customer. Order fulfillment includes several operations such as inventory management, packing, shipping, delivering and accounting. Hence, most of the operations involved are dealt without having to face the customers. TYPES OF ORDER FULFILLMENT Order fulfillment is of two types based on the usage of the process at a particular period of time. There is a conventional or traditional order fulfillment and E-commerce order fulfillment process. Traditional retailing of supply chain was used at the time of 1990s. In traditional retailing, inventory production is initiated at first and later is followed by pushing the product to customers. So, it begins with pulling and ends with pushing the product to customers. e- Commerce retailing deals with pull operations where order is first placed and later the inventory is produced. So, it begins with pushing and ends with pulling the product ordered. The switch over from traditional retailing to e- Commerce retailing is due to increase in services, expenses and enhanced communication and technology. The advantages of implementing e- Commerce is that it can be operated 24/7 and has...
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...Book Reviews: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox This book has been widely read by semiconductor manufacturing personnel since it was first published in 1984. It accurately describes the behavior of manufacturing facilities, including such fundamental concepts as bottlenecks, constraints, and the impact of variability. One reason why it has been so broadly read is that it frames these concepts in the guise of a novel. This makes the ideas easy to read and digest. The premise is that Alex, a factory manager, is given an ultimatum -- dramatically improve the performance of his factory in three months, or the facility will be shut down. Believing that traditional improvement strategies will never make enough difference in such a short time, Alex must resort to more desperate measures. He tracks down an old professor, now working as a consultant, and begs for advice. The advice of this consultant, Jonah, sets Alex and his team, on a journey. Instead of just giving them the answers, Jonah asks them questions, and refuses to give more help until each question has been answered. As Alex learns through this process, so does the reader. Some of the lessons of the book include the following. When you are productive you are accomplishing something in terms of your goals. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. The goal of a manufacturing organization is to make money. | Because of variability, a factory cannot be run at 100% of capacity. Or, as...
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...ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE UNIT CODE: BAC 502: UNIT TITLE: FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT Course Lecturer: F. Abdul LESSON ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. What is Financial Management Financial management can be defined as the management of the finances of an organisation in order to achieve the financial objectives of the organization. The usual assumption in financial management for the private sector is that the objectives for the company is to maximize shareholders wealth. 1.2. Financial Planning The financial manager will need to plan to ensure that enough funding is available at the right time to meet the needs of the organisation for short, medium and long-term capital. a) b) 1.3. In the short-term, funds may be needed to pay for purchases of inventory, or to smooth out changes in receivables, payables and cash: the financial manager is here ensuring that working capital requirements are met. In the medium or long term, the organisation may have planned purchase of fixed assets such as plant and equipment, for which the financial manager must ensure that funding is available. Financial Management decisions The financial management decisions relate to investment, financing and dividends. The management of risk must also be considered. Investments in assets must be financed somehow. Financial management is also concerned with the management of short-term funds and with how funds can be raised over the long term. The retention of profits is a financing decision. The other side of this...
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...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (To summarize the whole paper) 1.0 Industry Background SAMA resort, located at Kuala Linggi Malacca, is a 5-acre resort area by a beautiful sandy beach, artistically landscaped with ten chalets and with the features of traditional Malay houses. The beautiful wooden chalets equipped with all the modern utilities signified the success of turning traditional Malay houses deserted by the youngsters who inherited them from their forefathers, could be salvaged and turned into fitting accommodations for tourists and holiday-makers. On average, the total amount of revenue earned from visitors is those who interested into food, accommodation and recreational activities at the resort. 2.0 Existing Manual Operation / Processes Most of the business operations and transactional activities are managed manually by the owner, En Annuar considering that it is a small-medium sized resort. The owner and employees of the resort perceived the implementation of Information Systems (IS) solutions into their business operations as tedious and unworthy having the mindset that it will be an expensive initiative on top of consideration of risk to deal with complicated procedures. 2.1 Customer Handling Process of room reservation manually had causing a lot of inconvenience and unpleasant experience to the customers. This will directly influence the sales and profit of the resort. During working days, the room reservation only can be done via phone booking in PJ office. If customer...
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...Executive Summary Barilla SpA is the largest pasta manufacturer in the world, as a food manufacturer they sells to a wide range of retailers through a distribution network. An analysis of the demand for dry food pasta at Barilla SpA’s distribution centers and factories revealed extremely high variation in demand. The variation in demand observed was all the more remarkable considering that the underlying demand for pasta in Italy is fairly level. Currently, Barilla SpA is experiencing a full development burden of increasing production costs, inventory levels and inefficiencies in manufacturing and dissemination system due to huge fluctuations on demand and varied accuracy of forecasting knowledge. In order to combat this problem, we would like to realize and employ a Just-in-time scattering system (JITD) to enable information sharing along supply chain, improve production and distribution forecasts and reduce costs associate with inventories and inefficiency at the company level. However, the carrying into action plan is engaging troubles with resistances from both internal and external sides. Barilla thus controls the flow of goods through the supply chain based on accurate demand information that is neither biased by the distribution and...
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...The Theory of Constraints The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a novel approach to managing operations, developed in the early 1980s by Dr. Eli Goldratt, a Ph.D. physicist from Israel. In the early 1980s, Goldratt developed a computer software package called Optimized Production Technology (OPT), for scheduling complex manufacturing systems. The package used the linear programming technique. However, customers were never told precisely how it worked. So, although copies of OPT were sold to a number of companies, the software was not exactly a thumping success, probably because managers will not use a tool they do not understand. To advertise his ideas more effectively, in 1984 Goldratt wrote The Goal, a book that translated the general logic embedded in OPT software into the fictional account of a plant manager who solves production, quality, and delivery problems.1 To further develop the concepts introduced in The Goal, Goldratt founded the Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute, an institute catering to educating managers on the principles and concepts of TOC. Many managers and consultants have since adopted these principles, modified them, and applied them to a variety of settings. The Cost World Perspective The conventional approach to managing a firm is based on the "cost world" perspective. With this perspective, cost control is a key measure that drives decision making. For instance, the cost world perspective could block a push to achieve a competitive edge...
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...to develop more strategic approaches for managing supply chains. These affective factors and realization then led to the development of tradition SCM systems up to the advanced systems companies apply at present. The evolution of supply chain management occurred during the 1990s; at this time, collaboration between manufacturers and suppliers had been established in order to enhance traditional approaches in supply management functions. At the same time, retailers as well as wholesalers had integrated their logistics operations as well so as to achieve greater competitive advantages ( 2002). In the process, both of these concepts were joined and became a strategic approach to what is now known as supply chain management (SCM). In this chapter, the relation of the apparel industry to SCM is explained. Models, implementation needs as well as the dilemma on the application of SCM systems are also discussed through the citation of various related literatures and studies. Relevance of the Supply Chain to the Apparel Industry The apparel industry goes through a number of business challenges. Due to certain trends like fashion and consumer preferences, companies operating in the industry often encounter the issue on demand uncertainty. In order to address this, apparel businesses utilize the concept of product variety. This technique however, would require certain activities such as production systems, forecasting and inventory management. This then emphasizes the need...
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...processes that involves continual reduction of waste and reducing non value added costs and long run costs such as reworking defective products, product inspections and quality control which are some example of non-value-added costs. The Just-in-time used to be the management philosophy of continuous & forced problem solving and it is categorized as a pull system in term of production & purchasing where the system will control the materials whereby to use signals to the supplier or provider that there a more material is needed. This process occur by which the downstream work centers will request delivery from upstream work centers and these will be known as lean production. By implementing the Just-in-time in their production, it will act to attack all the wastage in the production process in terms of product that has not added any value to the product by the perspective of their customer. The system also will expose all the problems and bottlenecks that have cause by variability towards the product. It is also used to achieve the streamlined production by reducing the inventory. There are many types of wastage that used to found in many organizations that applies such production main activities such as overproduction, waiting, transportation, inefficient processing, inventory, unnecessary motion and product defects. A good example on the JIT system would be a car manufacturer that operates with very low inventory levels, relying on their supply chain...
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...organization. With reference to the Internet based information, discuss various strategic actions taken by this organization with regards to SCM to improve the finance and non- finance performance. 3 Introduction 3 Basic component Supply Chain Management 3 Plan 4 Source 4 Make 4 Deliver 4 Return 4 Supply chain management for logistic 5 Supply chain management for downstream 6 Tata Steel Strategic 6 Tata Steel supply chain logistic strategy 7 Tata Steel Supply Chain downstream strategy 8 Tata Steel finance improvement 9 Tata Steel non-finance improvement 9 Conclusion 11 Q2. Discuss various Supply chain activities (in relation to Lean Management) in a Toyota company in Danish Industries can learn and use for improved performance. 12 Introduction 12 What is Lean 13 Lean supply chain 14 Lean supply chain for Toyota Production System in Denmark 14 Value stream mapping 16 The VSM process 17 Performance improvement with implementation of VSM 17 Conclusion 19 Q1. Tata steel has taken various strategies in the SCM to improve the performance of the organization. With reference to the Internet based information, discuss various strategic actions taken by this organization with regards to SCM to improve the finance and non- finance performance. Introduction The Tata Group of Companies has always believed strongly in the concept of collaborative growth, and this vision has seen it emerge...
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