In March 2000, the Phillips Semiconductor plant (Albuquerque, NM) was shut down for six weeks after it was struck by lightning. The plant was responsible for producing electronic components for both Ericcson and Nokia. The six week shutdown led to a shortage of components and according to The Wall Street Journal, “company officials say they [Ericsson] lost at least $400 million in potential revenue” and “when the company revealed the damage from the fire for the first time publicly, its shares tumbled 14% in just hours” (Latour 2001). How is the severity of a supply chain disruption defined? An unplanned event slows down the flow (inbound/outbound) of products. The Phillip Semiconductor plant’s inability to ship conductors reduced Nokia and Ericsson’s ability to produce, distribute and sell products. In today’s business world, organizations frequently face difficult operating challenges. In order to meet customer demand, businesses need to develop an implementable strategy that directs the company during a crisis. Disruptions in the supply chain are one of the primary reasons these types of business strategies are needed. The number of natural or manmade disasters has risen considerably over the past ten years. According to an article in Armageddon Online, “during the 2000 to 2009 period, there were 385 disasters, an increase of 233 percent since 1980 to 1989, and 67 percent since 1990 to 1999” (2010). Some other common supply chain disruptors are transportation delays, port stoppages, and poor communication between the company and supplier. More times than not, these types of events cause a bottleneck effect in the company’s supply chain. The Need for Robust Strategy and Technology These unpredictable occurrenc... ... middle of paper ... ...e of dynamic pricing is how grocery stores reduce prices on goods that are close to or have met the shelf life stamped on the package. Assortment planning focuses on creating a display with the product that on entices customers to purchase the product. Silent product rollover is how some firms slowly and quietly add new products to the market. The idea is to continue to sell their product that is already part of the market without causing the customer to forget about the product because something newer is now available. Conclusion The technology and understanding make today’s supply chains more efficient and available than ever before. The slightest disruption in the supply chain can cost companies time, money and customers. This is the primary reason is imperative to construct a strategy/strategies that eliminates the effect of supply chain disruption.
Supply chain management is connected with the flow of products and information between supply chain members and organizations. New development in technologies enables organization to get correct information easily in their premises. Technologies used are helpful in coordinating the activities which manage the supply chain. By this the cost of information is decreased because now we have increasing rate of technologies. In an integrated supply chain where product or raw material and information flow in a bi-directional we as managers needs to understand that information technology is more than just computers.
...n Empirical Comparison of Anticipatory and Response Based Supply chain Strategies.” The International Journal of Logistics Management. 9: 2; 21-33. Lair, Noor Ajian Mohd, Awaluddin Mohamed Shaharoun and Mohamed Shariff Nabi Baksh, “JIT Implementation across A Supply Chain and It effects on Inventory Distribution”, http://www.moste.gov.my/kstas/NSFWorkshop/NSF/nsf%5CAAI16.DOC Lenzini, Joshua M (2002) “The Army's answer to supply chain management Army Logistician”; Fort Lee; Sep/Oct 2002 Li, Yuan, Fan, Zhiping and Zhao, Xuan (1999). “An Integrated Framework of Supply chain Management System.” Software Engineering Conference 1999. Proceeding sixth Asia Pacific. 196 – 199 Pagh, Janus D and Martha C Cooper (1998) “Supply chain postponement and speculation strategies: How to choose the right strategy”, Journal of Business Logistics, Issue # 2, Volume 19, Pg. 13-33.
Effective retailing technology allows companies to manage inventory by efficiently storing, shipping, and stocking items that its customers want. Inventory management is the key to a company’s success or failure, and Kmart seems to be the poster child of poor supply chain management. Since as far back as Joseph Antonini’s leadership, Kmart has had logistics issues (Young, 2002). Another recent CEO, Chuck Conaway, went so far as to admit that supply chain management was “the Achilles Heel” of Kmart (Carr & Cone, 2001). This paper will examine how investing in redundancy, having an increase velocity in sensing and responding, and by building an adaptive supply chain community could have reduced the risk that is damaging to a supply chain.
A supply chain is a system through which organizations deliver their products and services to their customers. The network begins with the basic ingredients to start the chain of supply, which are the suppliers that supply raw materials, ingredients, and so on. From there, it will transfer the supplies to the manufacturer who builds, assembles, converts, or furnishes a product. The chain now needs to get the product to the consumer by transporting the finished product from the manufacturer through a warehouse or distribution center. An example is that Wal-Mart has a nearby distribution center where products are delivered there and then split up to be delivered to a retail Wal-Mart. “Wal-Mart will take responsibility for breaking down larger loads and delivering the product to other Wal-Mart stores” (Ehring 1).
(Punter, 2013, p11) categorises the effect supply chain failures caused by disruption and their frequency of occurrence. This is critical to supply chain managers because realisation of effects can help prevent future occurrences.
*Enterprises today are finding that they are relying more and more on supply chain partners for their success. Enterprises spend most of their budget on purchasing goods and services from its supply chain partners. While globalization, extended supply chains and supplier consolidation offer many benefits in efficiency and effectiveness, they can also make supply chains more brittle and can increase risks of supply-chain disruption. Effective supply-chain risk management (SCRM) is essential to any successful business. It is also a capability many enterprises are yet to develop. The supply chain triad shown in figure 1 conceptually represents the key elements that should be of key focus in a SCRM. Identifying, evaluating, treating and monitoring supply chain risk will differ across individual enterprises depending on their industry, the nature of their extended supply chains, and their tolerance for risk.
In many instances, firms have not considered the impact of their actions on the supply chain and its long-term competitiveness and profitability. According to Wisner et al (2006), the “I win, you lose” silo mentality manifests itself in the form of using cheaper suppliers, paying little attention to the needs of customers, and assigning few resources to new products and service design. Eventually, these firms will create quality, cost, delivery timing, and other customer service problems that are detrimental to the supply chain. Cachon (2005), in his paper, describes silo mentality as the most significant barrier to overcome most of in supply chain management. Internally, the silo effect can also be exist among departments. The transportation manager for instance, may be trying to reduce annual transportation costs while inadvertently cause safety stocks to be higher, shortages, and to deteriorate customer service level. In order to overcome the silo mentality, the enterprise must strive to align supply chain goals and the goals and objective of the firm. Functional and decisions must be made while considering the impact on the entire enterprise profit and those of the supply chain.
The objective of supply chain management is to provide a high velocity flow of high quality, relevant information that will enable suppliers to provide an uninterrupted and precisely timed flow of materials to customers. However, unplanned demand oscillations, including those caused by stockouts, in the supply chain execution process create distortions which can wreck havoc up and down the supply chain. There are numerous causes, often in combination, that will cause these supply chain distortions to start what has become known as the Bullwhip Effect.
Inventory is the proxy for information. In the absence of timely and accurate consumption data, each node in the supply chain compensates for the lack of information with inventory. Not only does poor information flow build supply chain inventories, but it also restricts each company’s ability to react to increases in demand, causes extended outages, service interruptions and lost sales. As actual demand for products is disseminated up the supply chain in a more real time environment, the more closely aligned production is with demand. As the gap between production and demand diminishes, so to does supply chain inventories and service level interruptions.
This essay will critically evaluate the use of just in time strategy in the supply chain system by describing the method itself, then it will look for possibilities that it could benefit or harm the operations during crisis and unexpected events and its effect on the operations. This is followed by suggestions on how to survive in crisis events to companies who use lean supply chain system and tries to provide alternative approaches to this concept.
According to Mentzer (2001), several organizations have made supply chain management a key competency, particularly inbound logistics to support company operations. This is because its impact on services and products delivery to end consumer. Through supply chain management companies coordinate inter organizational operations for mutual efficiency. According to Brar and Saini (2001) to achieve supply chain efficiency organizations must be keen on their inbound logistics operations. This is because inbound logistics is the starting point of all supply activities in a firm and has an impact on subsequent supply chain activities. A disruption on inbound logistics flow may bring a company to a halt if production lines lack materials to run. This may lead to losses to an organization due to lost opportunities. Companies must therefore integrate inbound logistics in their supply chain plans for material sourcing and final product
The ability to manage supply chains effectively is a key component of corporate success. Adopting a supply chain management strategy (inventory strategy) that works to minimize costs, enhance quality and efficiency of products and services rendered, and maintain sufficient levels of inventory while reducing associated carrying costs is ideal for all businesses. Achieving such a goal, however, is quite challenging and most businesses adopt inventory strategies that best enable them to fulfill their most primary needs (e.g. reducing inventory costs and delivering high-quality products). Supply chain management relates to “the management and coordination of a products supply chain for the purpose of increasing efficiency and profitability” (Investopedia, 2008). In order to deliver quality products to customers in a timely manner while decreasing operating costs, businesses must have a sound understanding of supply chain management (SCM) and all that it entails.
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.
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/.
Interestingly, they include the time and the frequency of risk along with the common risk dimensions, probability and impact. The risk dimension of time is viewed as the speed of the event, the speed of losses and the time for detection of the events. This time perspective follows the same ideas as in Sheffi and Rice (2005), where the authors describe the disruption profile by associating supply chain performance with time. Both studies stress the significance of time to risk