How does engineering play a role in supply chain management? Well first, let’s define what supply chain management is. According to Columbia Engineering School, Supply chain management entails managing the flow of goods and information through a production or distribution network to ensure that the right goods are delivered to the right place in the right quantity at the right time. Two primary objectives are to gain competitive edge via superior customer service and to reduce costs through efficient procurement, production and delivery systems. Supply chain management encompasses a wide range of activities — from strategic activities, such as capacity expansion or consolidation, make/buy decisions and initiation of supplier contracts, to tactical activities, such as production, procurement and logistics planning, to, finally, operational activities, such as operations scheduling and release decisions, batch sizing and issuing of purchase orders. ( Columbia University. (2014). DROMB8108 Supply Chain Management. Retrieved from http://ieor.columbia.edu/supply-chain-management)
Engineering and Supply chain are complimentary than you may think.
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We must remember that communication is key in this process. The supplier will have strong knowledge of product and manufacturing capability and the sourcing agency need to incorporate that within the product design. Specification balancing should end with a set of subsystem and component specifications that are agreed to by supplier and the procuring company. The supplier will use these specifications to develop manufacturing process and capabilities specifications. The manufacturing process chosen may have a significant effect of product cost, schedule, quality and reliability. Specifications are a necessity because they are intended to answer any potential questions on the maintenance and production of the
Now referring to Blue Bell Company, the shift in supply occurs when they decide to recall all their products and re-evaluate it. Blue bell will more than likely increase the price of the remaining items in the market. This is the result of consumers still providing a high amount of demand for ice cream even though there is less to supply. This theory can be accurately applied to this situation because there is no other solution that they can do to combat the consumers’ need of ice cream. For example, if they do continue to sell at the same price, soon they will not be able to produce as much as consumers want thus eliminating the good from the market.
the inherent supply chain in this industry, which is done through encouraging the collaboration of all these elements in a given project. Some of the unique barriers in the process have been discussed below-
What are opportunities and challenges related to global supply chain management, include reference to the five stages?
One thing connecting all parts of local to national business, effected by billions of people each day and managed by thousands of businesses individually or together, the supply chain is an effective and much needed tool is our enterprises today. Compared to the business practices in the 90s and earlier back through time, the average business model today is very complex and intertwined with other businesses. No more are the days businesses could run off of a poster or simple advertisement in the community, now the business of social media and the internet are essential to running any establishment and earning money. A very integrated business is more than just advertisement and sales though, the enterprise needs coordination and it will decide to take part in information sharing within the supply chain management it will run. The supply chain
In a traditional manufacturing company, the supply chain covers the following roles: suppliers, labour, engineering, production, product, quality assurance, inventory, competitors and customers. The last role, that of customers, is different from the rest of the roles within a classic supply chain, meaning that suppliers are oriented upstream, while customers downstream; the labour is situated internally, while customers are external; engineering is done only by qualified engineers; production is protected from customers; products represent the offering that the customers obtain; quality assurance prevents faulty products to get to the customers; inventory can be managed in order to saturate the demand in time; and finally competitors offer customers different choices to satisfy their needs. Taking separately, the customer role in the traditional supply chain often resumes at “selecting, paying for, and using the outputs” and sometimes proving feed-back and promoting a company’s offerings by recommending to others (Sampson and Spring,
When businesses start making money, the upper management focusses on maximizing speed, but when the economy is bearish, companies try to minimize supply costs. But there is an issue with this approach, companies who become more efficient and cost-effective, they do not gain a sustainable advantage over their rivals. What gives supply chains of Dell, Amazon and Wal-Mart, the edge over their competitors is not their efficiency but differentiating characteristics such as agility, adaptability and aligning the companies with sustainable competitive advantage.
Supply chain management is the main role in operation management.Supply chain management handles supply side activities of a business with efficiency and effectively to gain the competitive advantage in the market.(Investopedia, 2003)SCM concerned with raw material supply,intermediate supply,end product distribution,retailers and wholesalers.So every aspect of supply chain is critical for the business and doing it right can cause
Supply chain management is basically refers to the fundamental supply chain analysis of the organization which predominantly describes functionalities from source to the delivery point. In this process of delivery, supply chain management framework divides in four categories: In Planning the products and suppliers evaluated and selected, Sourcing pull the information process including contracting, ordering and expediting, Moving is a physical process from suppliers to end user and Paying is the financial process including payment and performance measurement.
The Home Depot Supply Chain Management model is based on integrated inventory management through a centralized network of 20 distribution centers, called Rapid Deployment Centers (RDCs) and three Direct Fulfillment Centers (DFCs) aimed at the e-commerce market (Bond, 2015). Orders are processed and managed to meet current and forecasted demands, sent to the regional RDCs, which service approximately 100 stores each, and sent to retail outlets to meet stock requirements (Bond, 2015). Direct Fulfillment Centers are e-commerce distribution systems. Home Depot delivers within a two-day timeframe to 90% of US based customers, and the system also leverages in store stock for same day pick-up (Bond,
A supply chain refers to all parties to manufacture a product, to transport, to support services, and fulfill a purchase. It is a system that transforms raw materials or resources into a finished good to be delivered to the customer. Thus, the product is moving from suppliers to customers. Supply Chain Management refers to a wide variety of activities that firms and industries use to coordinate the key players in their procurement process (Laudon and Traver, 2015). The supply chain, which is the process to connect different partners to better serve the customers, involves the manufacturing, purchasing, transportation, operations, and physical distribution. Supply Chain Management has the power to control, plan, design, execute, and monitor the supply chain
Sourcing, procurement and supply management are also fall under the supply chain management umbrella. The various processes of supply chain management are forecasting, production, planning, scheduling, order processing and customer service. Supply chain management also includes information system which is necessary to monitor all of these activities. The customer is the key to both communicating and quantifying the supply chains
As an Industrial Engineer with more than 15 years of work experience, I choose Supply Chain Management (SCM) because I believe that logistics is the most dynamic, vibrant, challenging, technology driven area, and the future of any big national and international companies. It will give me the opportunity to know behind the scene of improving the companies’ performance by using SCM tools. If I work in this field, I can get my answers and a chance to work in the market of raw material, purchasing, production, distribution, logistics, and final goods. After finishing two semesters in the College of Business at University of Houston Downtown (UHD), I am really passionate about it and want to gain my knowledge in the logistics sector, learn new techniques and skills, and seek new opportunities.
‘Supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies. It encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, thir- party service providers, and customers’. (Web: Council for Supply Chain Management Pr...
The key performance drivers of Supply Chain Management (SCM) are - facility effectiveness, inventory effectiveness, transportation effectiveness, information effectiveness, sourcing effectiveness, pricing effectiveness, delivery effectiveness, quality effectiveness and service effectiveness. These drivers include various performance markers that may be measured quantitatively by gathering information and applying them in SPSS. The works here may principally be quantitative with spellbinding measurable investigation. In the current world, practical supply chain management to help the triple primary concern, (nature, domain, and economy) is likewise included in the extent of supply chain performance drivers. This is relatively a quite new research region.
My second interest in Supply Chain Management arose from my assessment that it is a ‘rational’ specialty. I understood that its simplistic applications could find solutions for essential needs of humanity. I realized that Mechanical Engineering has an enormous reach from automobiles and manufacturing to medical equipment and nanotechnology. I studied an extremely stimulating curriculum diligently focusing on Basic Mechanical Engineering and Operations research which gave me a holistic overview of the engineering field. Hence, my penchant for the range and extent of science with Mechanical engineering as the cynosure grew.