Home Depot's Logistical Management System

Home Depot is the fastest growing retailer in the U.S. by some accounts. It has a fascinating history of innovation and entrepreneurship. The company had some difficulties in the mid-2000s that some attribute to cultural clashes. However, during this period the company was able to take full advantage of the housing boom. Yet when the bubble burst, Home Depot was forced to claim substantial losses. Despite these loses Home Depot has weathered the storm fairly well and is in prime position to take advantage of an economic recovery; if it ever comes.

Provide freight payment and auditing, cost accounting and control, and tools for monitoring, booking, tracking, tracing, and managing inventory.

Home Depot’s corporate level strategy is growth. By 1997, they expanded throughout the United States and opened over 500 stores (Parnell, 2014). Home Depot began to set their eyes on expanding into Mexico by acquiring Total Improvement in 1999 and Del Norte in 2002 (Parnell, 2014). Their most recent acquisition was Interline in 2015, which is a national distributor and direct marketer of maintenance (“Home Depot Buys Interline”, 2015). To identify the business level strategy, you would first need to identify the industry in which Home Depot operates.

It is widely known that logistics is the life blood of anything major. The logistics and transportation industry in the United

It is assumed that the logistics strategies outlined in this report would apply to any divisions in Tsingtao Brewery. As such, it is also assumed that other divisions run very similar supply chain management systems to that of South China Sales Company. The final assumption is that investment by the Tsingtao Group in the supply chain is a very manageable investment for them.

DAMCO is one of the world's leading providers of freight forwarding and supply chain management services. For more than 100 years, we have been providing our customers with transportation and logistics solutions that support the waythey want to do business, wherever they are in the world. We manage and serve some of the most advanced supply chains in the world; in a diverse range of industries. With a relentless focus on simplifying complex supply chains, we uncover efficiency improvements that enable our customers to cut their inventories, reduce operating costs, and make significant short-term savings for long-term competitiveness. In every DAMCO office around the world, we have local people who speak the local language and understand the

A. Wal-Mart realized through third party studies and internal research that the Chinese customer were significantly more cost-sensitive than those in other countries and that there existed a strong, established culture of frequently shopping around to find the absolute lowest prices. Through these studies, Wal-Mart also realized that customer satisfaction level greatly influenced customer loyalty in China. The greatest determinant of this satisfaction was made up of perceived value. The perceived value is composed of three sub factors: (1) Product price, (2) Relative price and (3) Promotion. The other factors for customer satisfaction in descending order of its importance are Image,

Mentzer (2004) argues that no matter how large a firm is, in a globalised world, it lacks the total resources and requisites for success. Supply chain management is a complicated process which is enhanced by globalisation and communications technology (Coyle et al. 2008). Many businesses have no experience or expertise in logistics operations (Baxter, 2006). Managing the transition from a 3PL to an in-house operation is a long and challenging process, with little or no external support, and the penalties for mistakes could be extremely high and damaging to the performance of the firm (Baxter, 2006).

However, as one looks to the future, technology will play an essential role in enabling the desired changes. Technology will help make feasible the new logistic capabilities needed to support future industrial concepts and the type of efficient, responsive logistic system that business forces will demand”.[1] Traditionally, China is a country with relatively weak formal institutions; more importance is given to informal constraints, e.g. personal relationships. As a result, Chinese companies rely upon a network-based strategy of growth, based on personal trust and informal agreements among managers. These are important considerations for managers when forming business relationships and designing their supply chains in China. “Although customers are spending more on average for logistics outsourcing, the percentage of budget devoted to outsourcing logistics, and the services outsourced, haven’t changed dramatically over the past several years. Companies continue their general tendency to outsource relatively commoditized services”.[2] As a result of the market shift from cost-driven to quality-driven in the near future, the strategies for logistics service providers will include: more flexibility, quicker handling, better price stability, higher transparency and increased professionalism, in order to meet the challenges. “The next five years will see a significant increase in outsourcing activity. 3PLs will be the main beneficiaries of this process and as the

The world’s economy has increase within the last few decades due to innovation and globalization and international trade. Many organizations have increased economic activity across the world and have shorten the time it takes products to be produced, transported, and received to consumers domestic and internationally. With the advancement of new technology, many companies have expanded their markets by implementing tools and by the customer and government regulation. With the rise of globalization, warehouses have become a more promenade asset and act as holding facilities until the goods are ready for transit. With the emergence of new innovations, warehouses and now been centrally located to attract more transportation activity transforming way logistics companies operate (Williams, O’Neil 2016). Distribution centers are being centrally located close to highways, it allows logistics companies to pick up loads without long delays. The RFID devices allows warehouses to reduce labor cost, improve accurate inventory and improve the relationship with the customers. Boosting RFID technology drives the consumer market which in driven by globalization, regional distribution and new strategies. Transportation has been a major role in integrating global trade. The delivery of goods is now as important as the production of goods. New technology creates more jobs and more competitive completion among organizations and forced companies to engage strategic planning to compete

RFP is a tool whose utility is applied on services or complex products which in their quality, service or the engineered final product tend to be different from each responding vendor. The Warehouse Management System (WMS) RFP template contain lists and description of features and functions that are found within the Warehouse Management System software solutions. It is essential in controlling costs, saving time, and communicating clearly with vendors at almost all the stages of one's warehouse management system software selection projects.

Blanchard (2006) defined third party logistics as, “A single entity that coordinates all the logistics requirements for a given company/agency.” Today’s world business environment has become so competitive that companies in order to be successful in the market must deal with different resources for satisfying their customer need. In the past decade or so the competitive global market has made a big influence in the growing for external business. Third party logistics providers are more and more employing external companies for inventory management, transportation, warehousing, and other value added activities for customer services. Third party logistics ultimate goal is to provide a competitive advantage to the organization for which they are serving. According to Cardinal Logistics (2012), “Third-Party Logistics is an effective way to reduce operational costs, and allow a company to focus on their core competencies.

Constant technological development of the nowadays world dictates constant emergence of new trends. One of such trends which the nowadays business world has been familiar with for several decades is the technology called Warehouse Management System (WMS). Warehouse management system has a purpose to automate and refine the management of the inventory in a warehouse, warehouse space, the people who work in the warehouse and the time available to accomplish warehouse tasks (Young 2009). In case of correct and thoughtful implementation this system allows for improved productivity, increased customer service and better level of asset utilization.

The competitive drivers of the 21st century are time and service (responsiveness and flexibility). The notions of stabilizing flow and reducing variations are no longer competitive practices.

Logistics is one of the most important functions in business today. No marketing, manufacturing and project execution can succeed without prope