Strengths And Weaknesses Of Supply Chain

A supply chain is all the activities that produce or provide a product or a service to a customer (Reid & Sanders, 2010). Historically supply chain management has been about abating cost. Managing supply chain cost is key strategic planning to stay competitive in a global market. All organizations have a supply chain. A supply chain includes external, internal, incoming, and outgoing. External and internal supply chains are people, parts, raw material, raw foods, information, development of people and projects, engineering, labor, finished products, and components of products. Managing incoming supplies, use, storage, distribution and efficiently, to achieve maximum value of each. In order to be competitive and sustainable companies must develop and be constantly prepared to be agile with their supply chains (Milliken, 2012).

The main problem that Excel is confronted with is should the company try to expand into supply chain planning. The main question on the table is does Excel have the ability to complete the entire task in a supply chain from planning to execution? As is, Excel is the largest provider of freight management and contract logistics, and has four teams to accomplish everything they provide. Their four teams include: business development, solutions design, implementation, and operations. With Excel’s great success and achievements in all their past contracts, the company would like to expand into supply chain planning with the help of Haus Mart since they have be in a long standing relationship and already know Haus Mart’s supply chain.

This article adds value to the class by going into detail and providing examples of every pitfall the supply chain management can encounter, by doing so, it makes it easier to understand and visually how the supply chain management works. The supply chain management has various parts to it, and it can be hard to understand, but after reading this article and having so many different examples of situations, I see all the opportunities that come from pitfalls and I am aware of all the problems that can happen in order to avoid making them.

Lee, H. L. (2004, October). The Triple-A Supply Chain. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from ftp.software.ibm.com website: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/emea/dk/frontlines/Tripple_supply_chain_Havard.pdf

In today’s business environment, a company, such as Kuiper Leda needs to have a clear understanding for the need to have an efficient supply chain management system. This is needed in order to gain a competitive advantage within any desired industry. By creating an understanding of the many various interactions that occur between the system’s manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and its customers, helps to create a more efficient and effective supply chain management system. Examining the supply chain of Kuiper Leda, I will attempt to determine if Kuiper Leda’s practice meets today’s sufficiency for RFIR demands of manufacturing.

According to Mentzer, et al (Ballou, 2004), "Supply chain Management (SCM) is defined as the systematic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and the tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across businesses within the supply chain, for the purpose of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as a whole" (p.5).

It is suggested for any organization to review, reassess any existing supply chain management or any delivery techniques, before developing a new supply chain method so that any exposure to high risk of failure is reduced. Somerset as a company taken advantage of outsourcing and transferred it product manufacturing to China leveraging low cost labor and raw material. The labor cost and other cheap material reduce Somerset overhead cost, but there is always the risk of not delivering product on time due to the foreign country political climate, change in tax and tariff and local

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.

The business environment is increasingly becoming competitive and challenging. In the recent past, manufacturers have found themselves facing the threat of dwindling profit margins due to unfortunate global events such as the 2007 global financial crisis and the on going Europe economic crisis. The need to improve operation efficiency so as to ensure current and future investment yield the highest rate of return has therefore become extremely important. Manufacturers are now actively engaged in, managing their costs, Research and Development, adopting best procurement strategies, among other Actions. While such actions might eventually lead to positive results, additional business value can be achieved through proper management of the supply chain (Waymer, Ivanaj & Mussa 2009; Krivda 2004).

A supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products, and deliver the products to customers through a distribution system [1]. The basic objective of supply chain is to “optimize performance of the chain to add as much value as possible for the least cost possible.