1. Develop a list of about five to eight key principles that management should follow to achieve what the author calls supply chain nirvana. In essence, serve as a supply chain consultant to top management of a firm which has definitely NOT achieved supply chain nirvana. Briefly explain the logic underlying each principle and, if relevant for a given principle, explain why many firms tend to violate that principle or fail to implement it successfully. Perhaps you are familiar with a particular firm. If so then select those five to eight principles that you, as a consultant would recommend the firm focus most intensely on, why, and what they should do initially.
Monitor Changes in the external environment: Although industries change at
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The planning stage is the research and analysis stage that can facilitate changes that produce competitive advantage. A long-term view is needed to provide reasons for why a change is a smart move, or how it may reduce costs or increase agility.
Prepare Contingency Plans: Supply chain risks must be identified and planned for. It is important to consider supply chain disruptions such as natural disasters, terrorism, security threats, piracy, supplier’s financial collapse, and infrastructure or process failure and there are other risks that all businesses face such as demand volatility and compliance issues. (book, p.241). Developing back up processes and plans takes considerable time yet preparation can be the difference between business continuity and end.
Establish an executive-level leadership: “Creating an organization headed by a c-level executive creates the credibility, organizational imperative, and the financial clout that supply chain transformations need due to their cross-functional and expansive scope” (Book, p.245). Thus, the supply chain c-level executive will oversee the supply chain planning strategy/initiatives and the supply chain management side to integrate a supply chain vision. Alignment, or integration in the supply chain is an evolution that firms must strive for to be successful.
Control and measure efficiency in technology (and all other) investments: The assessment part
Planning consists of competitive moves and business approaches developed to attract, please customers, conduct operations, grow the business, gain competitive advantage, and achieve performance objectives (Huidan, 2011). There are three steps to planning. A manager must be able to decide what goals to pursue, the best strategy to achieve those goals, and how to use their available resources to achieve those goals as efficient as possible (Bethel University,
Today’s global supply chain has been shaped by the past decades of focus and strategies based on achieving the lowest operational costs coupled with a push towards market expansion and supplier outsourcing. The expansion of global supply chains combined with the increasing number of joined connections to external business partners has significantly raised the possibility for supply chain disruptions (Poirier, Quinn, & Swink, 2010). In today’s global business environment, the importance of risk management continues to grow daily.
Research the responsiveness issue in supply chains (push, pull, and postponement strategies). Define each strategy and discuss the major differences between them. Name some companies that use each strategy. Do not just use the textbook for your answers.
Berman (2006) outlines 4 stages of strategic planning. The first is a pre-planning phase (Berman, 2006). During this stage, it is important for organizations to assess how ready their organization is for implementing change. Berman (2006, p. 67) says there are five main stages of change: having an urgent need for change, having support from top management, having support from a "critical mass" of people in the department, achieving early successes to demonstrate the potential benefit of the change, and, finally, both internal and external stakeholders must trust you and the organization.
The planning stage is where all the other pats of management begin from and it is important at all levels of management.
(Handfield, 2007) Code C should cultivate supply chain strategies that plainly deliberate two parameters that “intensify” the negative influence of interruptions on customer and brand performance: globalization and product/process complexity. Second, Code C should plan strategies with countermeasures that diminish the impact of these things, that is: better visibility to strategic supply chain nodes that can rapidly identify disruptions. They should also have well-positioned resources that allow rapid short-range retrieval plans. They need to have in place long-range cooperative methods to remove disruptions in the future. Research also recommends that companies with a great exposure to global supply chain risk invest more in improved inventory and capacity visibility
The additional unpredictability of Cybersecurity dangers just enhances this, paying little mind to their position inside a supply chain. Numerous associations battle to protect the confidentiality, availability and integrity of their systems and frameworks in such a quickly advancing digital threat landscape. At the point when overseeing dangers to the supply chain, current associations take after built up techniques for relieving conditions and vulnerabilities that could affect upon the physical supply chains. Organizations need to be aware of different ways the supply chain can be effected.
Nejad, Noroomand and Kuzgunkaya (2014) discuss a contingency rerouting known as a cost-effective risk management strategy for major disruptions. The authors propose a mixed integer programming-based capacity planning tool to generate the contingency plan of the supply chain during disruptions, considering response time and congestion, especially critical when dealing with disruptions. This is in reference to the last decade disasters that affected the several supply chains for instance the Japan tsunami in 2011, September 11, 2001, to name a few. Contingency rerouting is applied to improve supply chain responsiveness to major disruptions (Nejad et al., 2014).
Planning is the deliberate act of establishing goals, and formulating a game plan in order to accomplish a long term end state. This process is done by leaders at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. “Strategic planning is a management tool. It is used for the purpose helping an organization do a better job – to focus its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization 's direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future.” (Bryson, 1988, p. 73) The Tactical level consists of mid
Bladen et al (2012) define the planning stage as involving developing a concept, carrying out a feasibility study ,choosing a venue and considering the event design .
In today’s highly competitive, global and fast pace market there is little room for error even when it comes to unforeseeable events. Companies are subjugated to not only growing the business but also sustaining it. By identifying, prioritizing and assessing the various risks that a company can face, uncertainty is reduced and a company can therefore lessen or control the impact when tragedy does strike. As the speed of businesses continue to increase, the risks and possibility of interruption also increases. Catastrophes and natural disasters can certainly disrupt the logistics of a business and hence when it comes to assessing supply chain disruptive risk, we need to ask the right questions. By asking the right questions we are able to
The 7 Principles all focus around the core concept of pursuing tangible outcomes through a disciplined focused on revenue growth, asset utilization, and cost. If supply-chain management has become top management's new "religion", then it needs a doctrine. Andersen Consulting has stepped forward to provide this needed guideline, advocating what it calls the "Seven Principles" of supply-chain management. When consistently and extensively followed, these seven principles bring a host of competitive advantages.
Organizations must pursue the goal of matching supply with demand in a timely fashion through the most efficient use of cross-chain resources. Supply chain partners must work together to maximize resource productivity, develop standardized processes, eliminate duplicate efforts, and minimize inventory levels. Such steps will help the organization reduce waste, drive out costs, and achieve efficiencies in the supply chain.
Due to its global nature and systemic impact on the firm’s financial performance, the supply chain arguably faces more risk than other areas of the company. Risk is a fact of life for any supply chain, whether it’s dealing with quality and safety challenges, supply shortages, legal issues, security problems, regulatory and environmental compliance, weather and natural disasters, or terrorism. There’s always some element of risk. Companies with global supply chains face additional risks, including, but not limited to, longer lead times, supply disruptions caused by global customs, foreign regulations and port congestion, political and/or economic instability in a source country, and changes in economics such as exchange rates. The scope and reach of the supply chain cries out for a formal, documented process to manage risk. But without a crisis to motivate action, risk planning often falls to the bottom of the priority list. Furthermore, the repercussions of supply chain disruptions to the financial health of a company can be far-reaching and devastating. A study by Hendricks and Singhal as cited by ( the Supply Chain Management Faculty at the University of Tennessee, 2014) emphasizes the negative consequences of supply chain disruptions (Production and Operations Management, Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring 2005). The study analyzed over 800 supply chain disruptions that took place between 1989 and 2000. Firms that experienced major supply chain disruptions saw the following
The second strategy is coping with uncertainty especially adapting and minimising the impact of uncertainty on the demand. The purpose of this strategy is based on the flexibility approach of the supply chain. It also has a double effect on the supply chain by reducing uncertainty and a much better sharing information than the first strategy. The final one, researching gaps is built around developing contingency-based study of supply chain uncertainty which includes the management strategies’ threat and their impact on sources of uncertainties in order to verify their efficacy.