Introduction A Supply Chain (SC) is an integrated process where involves various parties who are directly or indirectly working together to fulfil a customer’s demand. These parties can be manufacturers, suppliers, transporters, warehouses, distributers, retailers and end consumers. The functions of the SC cover a variety of areas, such as R&D, information flow, marketing, finance, distribution, operation, and customer services. In the manufacture industry, the SC includes of acquiring raw materials from suppliers, producing products by the acquired resources in a factory, storing raw materials and finished products in warehouse, and delivering the finished products to customer (retailers or end consumers). This process covers functions as production forecasting and planning, storage, logistics and distribution. Factors of Supply Chains …show more content…
Zara’s rapid growth and success are attributed to its strategy of highly responsive to changing trends with affordable prices. To achieve this, Zara uses a combination of flexible and quick sources in Europe and low-cost sources in Asia. As we known, Asia own the cheap raw material and labour for manufacturing, hence most of its apparel manufacturers have moved to Asia to reduce production costs. To reduce inventory holding and forecast error, Zara usually produce its apparels after the start of a sales season for a typical retailer, along with the forecast postponement of decisions until after trends are known. Inditex owns 8 distribution centres (DC) in Spain for distributing all finished products to all its stores worldwide. Even though the products are manufactured outside Spain, all the finished products must be concentrated into these 8 DCs before distribution. This allows store inventory to closely match local customer demand and reduce holding costs of over-inventory. (Sunil Chopra & Peter Meindl, 2016,
The main elements of a supply chain include purchasing, operations, distribution, and integration. The supply chain begins with purchasing. Purchasing managers or buyers are typically responsible for determining which products their company will sell, sourcing product suppliers and vendors, and procuring products from vendors at prices and terms that meets profitability goals.
The timing of capacity changes also needs to be taken into consideration to achieve maximum efficenty given that demands of their products varies with seasonal changes. The ability to react to market demand changes quickly will determine manufacturers flexibility in keeping up with these demands. Manufacturers needs facilities to produce, whether warehouses to store its raw materials or finished goods, or manufacturing plants to produce their products. Services facilities are needed by certain manufacturing industries such as consumer electronics to cater for returns. Distribution centres also determine the efficenty of production distribution and un-nesessary inventory holding will result in higher holding cost. Such facilities require large investments and are integral of the manufacturer’s supply chain strategy and thus proper planning is needed when making these decisions regardong the size, location which affect the overall operations. How manufacturers run their productions also determine how successful will they be in terms of productivity and quality levels. Different types of equipment and processes also affect the cost and output of the manufacturing plant. Information systems that flow both upstream and downstream affects the forecasting, planning, inventory and production levels, they must be robust to ensure the manufacturing firm is able to react accordingly to changing demands and variations. In addition to their internal environment,
The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.
Supply chains manage the movement of products from the acquisition of raw materials through production and finally distribution to the end user. A properly designed supply chain can create many opportunities to drive down cost and increase revenue opportunities. In order to create a supply chain that is sustainable and flexible it is necessary to identify and align company goals and initiatives with the manufacturing and distribution of products.
Supply chain management is a practice that involves the planning, supervision, and implementation of strategies and controls to direct the movement of goods and services provided to customers. The intent of this essay is to incorporate a synopsis of existing literature and to provide the reader with a general understanding of how supply chain management correlates with the organizational design and structure of modern firms. The essay comprehensively reviews the components of supply chain management and their integration with functional areas within an organization. The information presented in this essay
The aim of this case study is to analyze how ZARA has achieved its success through various business strategies. In particular, we will focus on supply chain management the relation between suppliers and retailers which helped to increase the efficiency of the company and also made customers satisfy. In particular, we will analyze various analytical tools and techniques implemented by ZARA to achieve success. And
Effective supply chain management can provide an important competitive advantage for a business marketer, resulting in improved communication and involvement among members of the chain, increased motivation, and decreased costs. Tracking the movement of and demand for components used to manufacture a product across a variety of potential and actual suppliers, provides insight and the ability to respond instantly to shortages, surpluses, and changes in market conditions. It seeks to optimize production, decrease manufacturing time, minimize inventory, streamline order fulfillment, and reduce cost.
The Spanish retail chain Zara has unique supply chain management practices that enable it to gain a competitive advantage over other fashion retailers in the industry. Zara’s rapid response time enables the firm to quickly respond to changing fashions while deliberately under producing products. This strategy, which is supported by competencies in logistic management, design and information systems, allows the company to maintain less inventory and higher profit margins and is a key factor to Zara’s success. The firm should continue to add value by seeking new opportunities to expand in the retail market and maintain their sustainable growth.
Many companies produce products from parts of raw materials that are purchased from suppliers, till these products are reach the markets and presented for the customers, then you have the supply chain starting from the purchase of raw material from different areas , through the manufacturing steps and stages till is being sold by the consumer. Some of supply chains are well defined and easy to determined, while there are other supply chains complex to analyze. However, supply chains vary with the size of the facility such as; complexities, performance, abilities, flexibility, quality, speed, dependability and cost of preparing goods for manufacturing and the chain length distribution. So the supply chain is a network of wholesalers, retailers, distributors, workers in the transport, storage facilities, suppliers, and manufacturers who participate in the production, delivery and sale of the product to the last consumer. A supply chain is a group of facilities that coordinate activities among it and to avoid the competitors. Moreover, to ensure the supply chain management is operating efficiently and generating the highest level of customer
The supply chain is a system made amongst different companies producing and distributing the product. Specifically, the supply chain contains the steps it takes to deliver goods or services from the supplier to the customer.
Supply chains represent the procurement, production and distribution activities of an organisation. Within a supply chain, these activities are viewed as linked and reliant on one another to produce the final outcome. It is believed that if one component of the chain fails, the whole chain is broken and product/service delivery goals will not be achieved.
According to our class text Supply Chain Management’s goal is to create fast, efficient, and low-cost network of business relationships to get a company’s product from concept to market. In order to understand the goal we must know that the supply chain is the process the raw materials of a product go through in order to be available to the consumer. The relationships that the business creates are needed in order to create the product, each process the product goes through creates value, the supply chain is often called the value chain. Internet technologies are increasingly making the supply chain management process much more efficient and worth the initial investment. The supply chain management life
A Supply Chain Process involves distinctive Orders like Procurement Order, Manufacturing Order, Factory demand, Distribution Order, and Customer Orders. The essential concern of Supply Chain Management is the way and when and in what sum are these solicitations to be set by every substance of the creation system to his connecting component so as to perform the targets specified in the significance of Supply Chain Management.
Supply chain: Supply chain encompasses all activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from the raw materials stage (extraction) through to the end user all well as the associated information flows. Material and
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable.