Global Supply Chain Management Procurement Personnel Essay

A. Analyze whether a Keiretsu network, a virtual company, a vertical integration, or a different supply chain strategy should be adopted.

Finally, there are those costs that are common to both global and domestic sourcing. Direct labor and materials costs, lead-time costs, transportation costs and inventory costs are a part of both domestic and offshore sourcing. Transportation costs, inventory costs, and lead-time costs tend to be higher when sourcing globally. On the

2. Develops solutions based on a deep understanding of the supplier’s economics and business dynamics

The globalization of organizations and more competitive forces have compelled more manufacturing businesses to improve an efficient supply chain planning for reducing the cost of supply chain. Planning of supply chain is being the critical component of business’ management. Supply chains have conventionally been split, being unsuccessful to assimilate the business utilities in the chain of logistics process. Such difficulties, as extended order lead times, high inventory costs, and struggle in answering proactive to real time variations, having lower profits and weak client goodwill that can be determined by putting together supply chain management schemes for transportation and warehousing. Supply chain can be explained as a combined practice where actually numerous different organizations individuals such as manufactures, retailers, distributors, and suppliers perform together in order to obtain raw materials, transform these raw materials into wanted ultimate products and supply these ultimate products to the vendors. The key methods in this combined procedure are the distribution, logistics, production planning and control. The production and planning steps are two of the most crucial parts to obtain worldwide optimization in supply chain management. And, this should be explained inside the integrated planning infrastructure. Interactive parts of supply chain included key parts such as purchase, production, logistics planning, sale, production and manufacturing

One of the major features of globalization has been the mergence and increased importance of third party logistics providers and support industries for shipping and transport operations. As businesses become more global in their scope and supply chains grow ever wider in scope and more globally integrated, the complexities and considerations of achieving efficient and cost-effective transport and support services grows more difficult, and most manufacturing and distribution companies outsource these services to a variety of different companies specializing in specific aspects of supply chain management and operational assistance. Achieving success as such a specialized company can be easy if the company maintains proper and accurate analyses of capabilities and environments and has appropriate internal controls, however failure to ensure these components and processes are in place can be disastrous, especially when combined with an emphasis on rampant growth.

Supply chain management is increasing in importance because “In today’s hypercompetitive environments in which competition is among supply chain networks rather than individual firms, firms are confronted with the need to effectively manage increasingly extending supply chain activities beyond the boundary of the firm,” (Lee, B.C., et al., 2010, p. 657). As stated previously, the broader the supply chain the more risks the company is open to. The second line of protecting the supply chain is creating strong relationships with the suppliers. The longer a company has a supplier, the stronger the relationship (Bayraktar, 2010), but to get to that point there needs to be similar: corporate and national cultures, vision, technology rate change, and quality information to share (Lee, B.C., et al., 2010). When all of these characteristics align, there is trust and open communication. Since supply chain management can be considered information sharing (Lee, B.C., et al., 2010), trust and open communication are necessary for information sharing to take place. Without trust and open communication, there is a very weak supply chain and even more vulnerability to risks. Trust and open communication are extremely important in global supply chains. Extra effort from the operations manager is needed when languages and time zones complicate communication.

The freight services provided by APL Logistics included chain visibility for not only Billabong, but their customers and suppliers as well. This is an example of a flexible tripartite enterprise collaboration, where each party can plan, manage and track shipments (Naim et.al 2006, p.306). Additionally, there exists the capability to alter the intermodal choices, to benefit the supply chain. Intermodal capabilities are facilitated by a full service 3PL provider for optimal results allowing greater access and

The construction market structure and price pressure (as opposed to genuine supply chain waste reduction), have restricted the ability of 3PL’s to play a greater supply chain collaborative role during the downturn. Cost and efficiency reduction decisions have been egocentric at times in attempt for self preservation of an enterprise in the construction supply chain, sometimes resulting in cost saving issues being passed back up the supply chain. This has included moves to little and often deliveries at shorter lead times. 3PL’s have been able to provide collaborative network solutions that share fleet and facilities to reduce the cost impact and capacity flexibility to achieve these changing ordering patterns. Some 3PL’s have delivered a management, optimization and execution role in enterprises, working as a ‘4PL’ or Lead Logistics Partner. However, these roles have tended to provide value mainly to the contracting entity and not the wider construction supply chain.

Partner relationship management has been of less important. With growing technology and globalization communications between businesses, suppliers and other such intermediaries needs to be addressed and managed properly. Properly managed customer relation between firms, customers, and the intermediaries, for instance, the middle people create a good a good supply chain of products from the producer to the consumer which can eventually have a positive return on investment (Agarwal & Singh, 2014).

As discussed above, to reduce costs it would be reasonably advisable having closer partnerships with third-party logistics so as to understand each other’s needs and devise the best logistics

The class text states that Supply chain management is frequently divided into supply chain planning applications, supply chain execution applications, logistics management, and warehouse management. Often when companies fail at implementing an efficient supply chain because of the planning section, or inaccurate demand forecasts. The text states electronic data interchange is one of the earliest uses of information technology for supply chain management, Electronic data interchange is the use of the Internet for everyday business transactions. “In this era of information a firm’s supply chain should operate at speed of thought and this is possible only by enhanced e-speed communications and information sharing with their critical partners.” (4)

OUTSOURCED SUPPLY CHAINS: Here the third party logistics (3PL) takes care of the activities and makes decisions concerning the supply chains. (kulkarni & sharma)

Modern global integrated supply chains couldn’t be global or integrated without a modern technological infrastructure to act as both supply chains connective tissue and nervous system. While modern supply chain executives are expected to have a grasp of modern business technology, the thought of actually making technology related decisions can be scary for even the most senior executives. So, what should supply chain managers expect their system software and hardware to do for their supply chain? In this paper, I will talk about how online purchasing at McDonalds affect the technology and supply chain management (Carr, 2016).

To survive and being success in modern business environment, focusing on supply chain management has become one of the popular ways to increase competitiveness among organizations. According to Lambert and Cooper (2000, as cited in Flynn, Huo and Zhao, 2008), organization has started to rethink the importance of cooperative, mutually, and beneficial supply chain partnerships due to the fierce competition among organization nowadays. In order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness, outsourcing has been commonly used among business, which means companies will allocate part of their production process to a third-party logistics and fourth party logistics (3PL&4PL) rather than finishing the

Collaborations allow for businesses to focus on what they specialize in, while eliminating excess work outside of the core function of their operation. Within the readings of Diagnosing Greatness, Pisano & Verganti dispute, “the collaborative approach chosen must be right for the organization and its business circumstances” (Poirier, 2008, p. 99). The focus on a collaboration benefiting its business circumstances, in addition to yielding benefits, while allowing for a competitive market place are key. Despite the need for competition in a successful marketplace, collaborations yield unprecedented benefits to business & consumers.