Victoria Sanders
Vice President, Post Sales Commercial
P.O.Box 11209, 72 Industrial Media Production Zone
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dear Victoria,
Thank you for the time you and your colleagues spent discussing the urgent need to increase Xerox Emirates’ supplies and consumables sales after the dismal 2014 performance. After looking into the probable causes in the loss of revenue and giving your situation considerable thought, we have discovered the loss in revenue is due to improper inventory management. This will potentially lead to failure in supporting enterprises with their printing needs, deteriorating delivery performance, dissatisfactory customer service and entry of competition into your market.
NP Consulting will provide a comprehensive solution by creating a real time inventory management plan complete with all the resources required which will ensure your cost and service objectives are met. The goal of the project is to increase the printer supplies sales by 30% at a cost of $200,000 by April 2016. Subsequent to implementation, we expect your inventory forecasts to be accurate saving you $350,000 that is lost yearly due to improper inventory management. This will ensure your commitments are fulfilled in a timely manner and your delivery performance and customer service levels highly improved, which will maintain your standing as the leading printing solutions company in the UAE.
Our proposal below presents our understanding of your current situation, our
During the game, I realized that wide gaps in orders of every role in the supply chain such as factory, distributor and retailer create inventory management challenges. For example, distributor records 0units between week1-week 4 compared to retailer within the same period. The retailer records 3units, 5units, 2units and 2units between weeks 1- week 4. The same applies to factory with 0units from weeks 2-4. Addressing inventory management problems requires developing an average unit level to avoid disappointing customers when demand
One of the biggest improvements to be made that would assist the manufacturing, delivery and shipping systems are changes to the inventory management system. The inventory management system needs to be upgraded to a less manual, more automated system utilizing barcode technology. Barcodes would be placed on every product built and/or raw materials received by Riordan. Inventory would be scanned when picked from the shelves, would be scanned when placed on transit, and would be scanned upon arrival and departure at any Riordan facility. This would be put into place for both raw materials arriving as well as products that are post-production and ready for distribution. With accurate inventory counts, the company could better forecast low inventory levels and drive manufacturing based on the available inventory and projected orders from our customers. The system will have reorder quantities established and will auto-reorder when inventory levels get
Chabot needs to increase the flexibility in its supply chain. Chabot is an innovative product manufacturer trying to utilize an efficient supply chain. In order to be able to meet demand, the company needs to deploy excess buffer capacity. Lead time is not up to par so Chabot needs to increase its inventory if it plans to meet unpredictable demand. This will also help increase Chabot’s level of
In this case study, production and operations management (POM) issues of a mid-size company, named as Scientific Glass Inc., in a highly growing market are studied. Using the background information on past actions of the company to correct inventory management and their results, and considering the market leadership opportunity, how inventory management approach can be made better is explained by evaluating different alternatives from different aspects. In the first part, critical POM issues are mentioned, following that these problems are analyzed. In the third part, alternative options are listed and then they are evaluated. Finally, considering
Case Analysis Success in the folding carton industry Pitts has been extremely aggressive in positioning Carded Graphics within the folding carton industry. This industry prints and cuts paper and glues it in a way that allows subsequent unfolding and filling by the customer. The industry is facing ever shorter lead times and must satisfy even more complex customer requests, particularly regarding printing capabilities. The large printers have secured the ultra-high-volume noncustomized business (printing boxes for commodity products), and Carded Graphics must be able to fill the customized small-run business. Pitts took a major step in purchasing a state-of-the-art printer. It is the main feature of Carded Graphics’ operations, putting the company ahead of
The company is looking to increase profitability and find a long-term solution to the inventory problem.
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,
In order to make this concept real, Staples has to build competitive advantage through finding the right management team who are experienced in this area, looking for the right location to open their stores in order to be close to the target customers, deciding on how many staffs needed in a store to be effective, establishing a distribution channel where suppliers will cooperate according to their operations, choosing the selection of the product required and the amount inventory to keep, managing costs and be efficient all the time, and communicating their value to the target customers. A key organizational capability that Staples realizes instantly is to have an information system that can help them to manage the process better in place, which greatly contributes to increase Staples' efficiency. Such system is able to help Staples to get the right merchandise mix in order to be profitable through monitoring customers' needs, and attain low cost structure by making sure that the inventories turnover accordingly. In sum, Staples is successful in building most of its intangible and tangible asset and develop organizational capability
Northcutt Bikes is a bike manufacturer and a service provider of bike parts to the many retail businesses that sell Northcutt bikes. Northcutt Bikes has a warehouse that is 95% utilized however they have an order fulfillment rate of less than 80%. This has caused a loss of revenue due to orders being cancelled when needed parts are not in stock. To resolve the problem, we looked at 3 alternatives including establishing pooling groups within the same geographic region, establishing a continuous review inventory management system or staying the course. Our recommendation is to establish a continuous review inventory system that will reduce unnecessary inventory, increase needed inventory and improve service levels.
Reorders are placed at the time of review (T), and the safety stock that must be reordered is:
The Xerox Corporation’s history, however, is not perfect. In 2002, they were fined $10 million for inflating revenue and profits from 1997 to 2000 by including future payments on existing products (Xerox). They were using various “topside accounting devices,” to manipulate their equipment revenues and earnings (KPMG). They would record leases of products to customers as sales in order to increase their revenue.
4) Exploring the possibility of implementing JIT (Just in Time) system that can reduce the finished goods inventory at
Xerox also found out that the Japanese competitors could produce, ship and sell units for about the same amount that it costed the corporation just to manufacture . In addition, the corporation posted “over 30 000 units defective parts per million – about 30 times more than its competitors” Xerox online (2017). This translates that the corporation would need approximately more than 20% annual growth for 5 consecutive years to catch up with their
A common way of decreasing the amount of inventory a business holds on a daily basis is implementing a just-in-time inventory process. A Just-In-Time inventory system means that the business gets the materials for a product, as they are demanded. “The electronic data
Apply time, money, people and other resource involve in early supply and supplier to assure continuous availability at the lowest cost in strategy spend.