Lack of coordination in a supply chain is costly and highly disruptive. The readings this week described several factors that can lead to supply chain problems. Most of the problems occur when there is ineffective communication between the different stages of a supply chain. Within a supply chain each stage may have a different owner and different performance indicators or measures. If each stage if focused on its own local objectives this may conflict with the overall success of the supply chain and of the other stages. In many cases, information passed from one stage to the next is delayed, incomplete, misleading or inaccurate. This makes coordination a challenge. There are many factors that lead to an uncoordinated supply chain: 1. Incentives that lead sale …show more content…
It is commonly seen in apparel and grocery industries as well as industries like electronics with strong boom and bust cycles. Lack of coordination in a supply chain effects performance in a number of ways. The increased variability hurts supply chain surplus. • Manufacturers may build excess capacity leading to higher manufacturing costs • Wholesalers may carry a higher level of inventory leading to higher inventory costs • Surplus transportation capacity will need to be maintained to cover unpredictable high demand periods leading to higher transportation costs • Excess labor capacity will need to be carried to meet variable shipping and receiving requirements leading to higher labor costs • Replenishment lead times will become longer because scheduling is more difficult and available capacity and inventory may not be able to supply new orders The lack of coordination will cause decreases in: • Level of product availability: There are more stock-outs. It is difficult to meet all distributor and retailer requirements on time. This increases the likelihood retailers will run out of stock and lead to lost
In addition, on day 105, the reorder quantity was 13,200. This approach was effective as it increased the number of inventory kits available for production. In total, the company used $2,059,000 to increase its inventory levels. The increased inventory levels and the readjustments of reorder points enabled the factory to increase the number of jobs accepted each day as well as to reduce the number of jobs waiting for kits. In addition, there was a high number of kits queued at station one from day 80 which was accompanied by increased utilization of station one. Besides, we were able to reduce the lead time for all the orders and this enabled the company to increase its revenues.
In fact, transportation costs have a significant impact on cash-flows and also on the value of the project. If adding the budget for transportation cost is ignored, and even if the Merseyside project can add total throughput, the transportation division still cannot transfer the spared throughput due to the throughput is over the ability of the original transferring utility. Therefore, there will be a charge of ₤2millions which will be added to the project. Impact- Cannibalization& Ramp up period
In the 1960s through the 1970s, companies realized strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were strong market strategy keys to create and capture customer loyalty. As the demand for new products rose in the 1980s, these market requirements were to increase their flexibility and responsiveness to adapt existing products and processes or to develop new ones in order to meet customer needs. As manufacturing improved in the 1990s, managers began noticing material and service inputs involving suppliers and their major impact on an organization’s ability to meet customer needs. As a result of these changes, organizations now find that it difficult to manage their own organizations. First, they must be involved in the management of their network of all upstream firms that provide directly or indirectly, as well as the network of downstream firms, which are responsible for delivery and market service of the product to the end customer. In order to succeed, managers have to realize that they cannot do it alone and they must work together on a daily basis with the whole organizations in their supply chains. Because supply chain management involves all functions within an organization, managers need to know what a supply chain is, why it is important, and the impact of supply chain management on the success and profitability of their organization. Today, Wal-Mart topped the list of the America’s biggest companies on the Fortune 500 list, “with sales of almost $345 billion — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars” (Forbs). Wal-Mart’s supply chain management is becoming recognized as a core competitive strategy.
The inventory issue also ties in with transportation problems where accurate lead and delivery times are non-existent. The inventory turnover is not at its full potential because if the DC has merchandise yet the stores are stocked out, the inventory is frozen and will become obsolete.
The rate of growth of the company affected the supply chain management system negatively. Sales and the company grew at a healthy rate annually, but the supply chain management system lagged in performance by comparison, based on a monolithic approach to supply chain sourcing that decentralized orders, inventory management, and the movement of products to retail stores independently by
· There is the possibility of the supplier integrating forwards in order to obtain higher prices and margins. This threat is especially high when
Although there are intrinsic and extrinsic risks that any organization faces. The supply center should begin focusing on the intrinsic factors to improve the SC within their organization because they are a unique organization regarding logistical efforts and the customers they serve. Improving collaboration depends greatly on providing incentives to employees for collaboration efforts, information sharing through both data and information technologies, and fostering business relationships in each
...than their current supplier. By decreasing their lead times, they would not have to buy materials for orders as far into the future as they do right now. While improving their forecasting process is extremely important, shortening lead times would lessen the extent of excess inventory. For instance, imagine that every month your forecasting is incorrect by two ambulances. With a lead time of six months for aluminum, you would order 12 ambulances worth of extra aluminum that would sit in excess inventory for that period of time. However, if you can shorten that lead time to four months, you only have 8 ambulances worth of surplus aluminum. This example does not take into account an improvement in forecasting. If both forecasting and the materials supply chain could be controlled better, Wheeled Coach has the potential to lower its spare inventory significantly.
One problem anyone is going to have in just about any industry is the amount of inventory to keep at warehouses. If there is too much inventory, then high costs will become a problem and hurt your bottom line. At the other end, if you try to save too much money by keeping inventories dangerously low, it may create stock-outs. These can infuriate your clients
Lean manufacturing and just-in-time processing are great business strategies that can severely stress a supply chain. The supply chain and supply chain management is a critical operations management element for any major company to succeed and remain competitive in the global market. The supply chain is one of many pieces critical to maximizing value to the end customer and requires close management to minimize external impacts. If a company is relying on another company to supply the raw materials needed for their production line, then impacts to this other company could impact their supply chain. Careful risk management is needed to optimize performance. As a company expands into global markets and global suppliers, this risk and management challenge is multiplied. The global nature of the company could impact important activities such as transportation, funds transfers, suppliers, distributors, accounting and information sharing. Disruption to the supply chain can significantly reduce revenue, cut market share, inflate costs and threaten production. A major disruption would have obvious impacts to profit, but could have additional intangible impacts to the credibility of the company if products are not delivered on time.
Supply chain management has been defined as that process that involves the management of information, materials, and all the finances that are handled within and across the entire supply chain process (Christopher, 2016). The management is usually done through out the entire supply chain management from that moment when the suppliers are involved through all the manufacturing activities, different distribution activities, and the way that the products are served to the final product consumer (Turban, et al., 2002). The process also includes all the activities that different organizations offers to their customers as after sale services for purposes perfecting their services and products towards their highly valued customers (Christopher,
Quickly becoming apparent after only a few rounds of play was in the absence of coordinating direction the individual supply chain links immediately focused upon acting in their own best interests much more so than the organization as a whole. Whether the end use customer was satisfied became secondary to avoiding stock outages for the next link in the chain, or their specific “upstream customer”. The real world application of this example is that focus on the end use customer must be consistent and maintained throughout the process up to and including delivery. Undoubtedly internal customers, such as retailers to wholesalers and distributors to production, must be serviced along the way for the transaction to ultimately occur. However, unless an end use customer is involved no profit can be realized by anyone.
...ther or mechanical or even customs delay. Customers were upset of these issues when they were expected to have on-time delivery of their shipments.
19. Sodhi, Sunil Chopra and ManMohan S. Managing Risk to Avoid Supply Chain Breakdown. MITSloan Management Review. [Online] October 15, 2004. [Cited: February 25, 2010.] http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/articles/2004/fall/46109/managing-risk-to-avoid-supplychain-breakdown/.
Coyle, J., Langley, C., Gibson, B., Novack, R. and Bardi, E. (2008).Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective. 8th ed. Cengage Learning, p.366.