Value Chain Management

Value Chain Management

Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd (RCCL) has two distinct supply chains which create a unique challenge. Each supply chain is managed by a Provision Master. The first supply chain includes all food, beverage, and lodging inventories that needed for the trips. The second supply chain encompasses “corporate spend” materials, such as office supplies, printing services, hardware and software, printed materials, computer supplies, marine consumables (spare parts, fuel, lubricants, any and all services associated with the ship maintenance and etc).

The Provision Master for the first supply chain is required to prepare a list of materials needed for the next cruise or sometimes for a few upcoming cruises and to disperse the inventory to various cost centers on the ship which based on the cost centers’ requisitions.

The Provision Master is facing a challenge jobs because the Provision Master must analyze the previous trips experiences, the season, and the current customer base so that enable to come out a list which can satisfy the passengers’ need. The Provision Master may need to consider where the passengers from like US based, European based or Asian based because different region passengers consume different things. The Provision Master also has to consider the number of child passengers on the cruise because they consume less than adult passengers. When the list is finalized, it is transmitted to RCCL’s procurement department, which then does an extract in the system and sends purchase requisitions to suppliers via electronic data interchange (EDI), fax or e-mail.

“We want to work very closely with our suppliers so that we can effectively plan for the deliveries of truckload quantities of materials to key strategic locations. In this way, we can fulfill requirements to the fleet as needed,” explained by Michael Allsup, RCCL’s VP of supply chain management. Besides that, RCCL do not specify on one supplier who provided goods or services in excess of 10% of RCCL’s expenditure because avoid suppliers access power on the prices.

Operation

These are the activities related to the production of products and services. This area can be split into more departments in RCCL such as the marketing department responsible for promotion and advertising, human resource department responsible for recruiting potential employees, financial department responsible for the financial support and etc. Each department is work closely with another department so that integration is made and achieves the company goal.

After the purchasing on materials is made, then it turns to operation part which is transforming the raw material into finished food and services.