Springs Industries Inc.
Springs Industries Inc. is a $2.2 billion textile company that is
headquartered in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Springs Industries
focuses its efforts into the production of the home furnishings
market, and operates under well-known brand names such as Wamsutta,
Springmaid, Disney, LizAt Home and Bill Blass. Their home furnishings
segment account’s for nearly 82% of the company’s revenue, and remains
one of the leading producers of bedding, bath and other home
furnishing products in the United States (McFarlan, pg. 1, 1997).
In 1995, Springs acquired several additional companies in which they
could facilitate the introduction of new and complementary products
that would provide them with a distinct set of product offerings.
However, integrating these new companies into the existing operating
environment would pose significant challenges. “Presenting one face
the customer” was of the utmost importance to Springs and fusing the
“back-office, administrative, and marketing efforts of its
acquisitions” would present numerous complexities (McFarlan, pg. 1,
1997).
Knowledge Building
The home furnishing market which Springs competes in is extremely
volatile. In the home furnishings market, earnings are directly
related to fast and flexible product development, short production
cycles, and ability to replenish stock supplies quickly. Recently,
Springs industry rival WestPoint Stevens was making waves in the
marketplace from the payoff of their heavy investments the past five
years into technologies that increased their current capacity 12%.
To further stress the need for Springs to re-work their existing
structure, one must first understand that in this industry it is
critical to present a strong product lineup because retailers
increasingly wish to purchase from fewer suppliers. This is evidences
by another competitor of Springs, Pillowtex, in recent times acquired
additional smaller companies which will allow the expansion of their
current offerings, and position them to compete directly with Springs
in the existing home furnishing market (McFarlan, pp. 1-3, 1997).
Wanting to remain competitive and on top of their respective market,
in 1997 Springs Inc. hired up and coming executive Crandall Bowles to
lead them into the new millennium. Bowles top priority was to direct
her efforts on the company’s information systems and determine both
the breadth of expenditures and the pace of innovation necessary in
order to increase profit by quickening the pace of its application of
new technology and sources of information to marketing, customer
service, and inventory management (McFarlan, pp 1-2, 1997).
Springs deals specifically with large retailers, the likes of
Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target. These companies demand that suppliers
manage their existing inventories according to current purchasing
trends, which are identified though the collection of Point of Sale
(POS) data and the use analytical sophisticated Information
Technologies (IT).
The founhder of the company, Godfrey Keebler, started with jus a small bakery in Philadelphia, PA in 1853. During the next two generations, local bakeries popped up around the country, including Strietmann, Hekman, Supreme and Bowman. With the introduction of cars and trucks (carrying the Keebler logo), bakery goods could be distributed beyond the neighborhood and regional distribution began.
Based on the textbook and my understanding, whenever there are negotiations between a procurer and a supplier regarding a competitive bidding, the first thing that might be favored is the scope of the project, meaning both will sit down and discuss the entire project prior the work begins. Meanwhile, during the negotiations, evaluation criteria should be clear, and stated and defined. As the evaluation is based on the criteria stated and the procurer can request or ask the supplier’s opinions on certain specifications and where things can be improved.
In the early 2000’s Lowe’s was rapidly intensifying its presence nationwide. The company carried a varied assortment of home improvement products and catered to the needs of retail as well as commercial business customers. Lowe’s expanded their reach by acquiring a 41-store chain, Eagle Hardware and Garden, and engaging in a strategic alliance with HGTV to obtain a more profound existence in their market (Rouse, 2005). By 2004, Lowe’s operated almost 1,000 stores with plans to continue expansion across the nation (Rouse, 2005). The company has a core competency in helping customers meet their home improvement needs at a low price. In order to use this core competency to gain a competitive advantage, the company has focused on key functional strategies. To continue their success, Lowe’s must specifically focus on marketing, logistics, and human resource management strategies.
During the Simply Soups, Inc. audit, we were responsible for confirming the balances for each of the company’s bank accounts. The purpose of sending confirmations is to obtain a reasonable expectation that the balances presented on the books reflect the actual values recorded by the banks, addressing any issues of existence. In addition to providing validation from a reliable source, confirmations also allow us to reconcile any issues concerning money in transit.
Maude Barlow’s “Water Incorporated: The Commodification of the World’s Water” gives a voice to a very real but vastly unknown issue: the privatization of water. I refer to it as vastly unknown because it wasn’t until this article that I was even aware such a power struggle existed. Barlow first introduces startling statistics, meant to grab the attention of its reader. Once she has your attention, she introduces the “new generation of trade and investment agreements.” (306) This includes referencing many different acronyms such as, FTAA, NAFTA, GTAA and WWF. FTAA, NAFTA, and GTAA are the villains of this story. Simply put, the privatization of water would end in socioeconomic turmoil and dehydration worldwide.
Trinity Industries journey started in 1933 when they were known as Trinity Steel, founded by C.J Bender in Dallas. The company manufactured butane tanks, had revenues of $2.5 million, and 200 employees. Trinity steel was growing by producing large petroleum tanks, steel fabrication for refineries, and leasing trucks. However, in 1957, the company faced increasing competition and business started to decline. In 1958, there was a merger between Trinity Steel, Dallas Tank, and Bender Wallace Development Company. Trinity Industries was formed, incorporated, and went public. By 2007, Trinity Industries had 14,400 employees working in 22 business units with revenues of $3.8 billion. Bu’s were grouped into 5 line of business (2008):
For much of its century long history, Nucor Corporation and its predecessors displayed turbulent performance. Several attempts at strategic and leadership realignment proved unsuccessful, and in 1965, the company faced insolvency. Since that time, however, the company has rallied around its steel operations to become the largest steel producer in the United States, with $4.3 billion in net annual sales. This case examines Nucor's development from an unprofitable conglomerate to a highly efficient enterprise. Specific focus on the evolution of the activity system underlying the organization lays the groundwork for systematic analysis of why some companies succeed while others fail.
Most of water consumed in China is not rationally used. The cause which intensifies the water shortage in China is water inefficient use. For instance, 65%-70% of Chinese water usage is spent on agricultural needs, but more than half of this amount evaporates percolates and loses (Roberts 2009). Besides, majority of another 20%-25% which is occupied by China’s industry is not recycled (Brown 2008a, 16; Roberts 2009). Obviously, improving water distribution technologies and management quality can be one of the options to reduce the water scarcity in China. There are many different methods of improving the water distribution efficiency. Firstly, irrigation technologies should be improved. Farmers in China may use drip and shrink irrigation methods instead of traditional “surface” ones such as furrow and flood irrigation. Drip irrigation method is used mostly in arid and semi-arid zones and it increases the efficiency of irrigation by transporting the water directly to the roots of irrigated plant. The emitters sprinkle the soil under the roots with water which is introduced to the plant by pipes, diminishing water evaporation, deep percolation and leak. In contrast, fur...
Collected data were subjected to analysis of variance using the SAS (9.1, SAS institute, 2004) statistical software package. Statistical assessments of differences between mean values were performed by the LSD test at P = 0.05.
Majority of Indian’s livelihoods are dependent upon land and water based occupational functions such as agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry and fisheries. India’s total land is about 329 million hectares, out of which 175 million hectares of land is non-productive hence non-profitable and therefore it requires special treatment for the same reason. In India, water availability situation is murky because of spatial and temporal variability. Both these factors are forecaste...
Bayfield Mud Company sent its customer service representative, John Wells, to investigate its product sent to Wet-Land Drilling Inc. The problem was 50-pound bags of mud treating agents sent to Wet-Land recently was underweight by 5%. Wet-Land found that the average weight per bag was 47.51 pounds. Normally, net loads average should be 50 pounds per bag with an acceptable standard division of 1.2 pounds. This mistake of Bayfield Mud had the great impact on Wet-Land’s cost. Bayfield Mud Company needed to solve the problem otherwise Wet-Land might find a new supplier.
In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).
...tersom frigjøring har vært en viktig side ved flere av filosofenes virksomhet, noe som gjenspeiler seg i Beauvoir sin filosofi og syn på kjønn ved at dersom kvinner frigjøres vil menn også bli frigjort.
It is undeniable that Inventory Management is an important key to success at Walmart this paper will discuss the two main methods of Inventory Management used by Wal-Mart: Material Requirements Planning and Just-in Time. Next we write about the technical means of keeping track of inventories like RFID tags. We conclude with discussing how
With the popularity of the Internet, sales for CDs, DVDs, Movies, and many other products have increased. Along with the increase of sales has brought forth an ever increasing problem of illegal media being downloaded. Programs such as Bittorent, Kazaa, and other direct-connect networking programs have allowed the transferring of such illegal media. Downloading song files from the Internet over a free peer to peer network is the moral equivalent of shoplifting music CDs from the local mall.