Essay on Lucent Technologies

As early as the 1970s Mattel was manufacturing products in China in order to take advantage of lower costs and enable corporate resources to focus on establishing the brand. By 2007, nearly 65% of Mattel products were produced in China. Mattel used a combination of company-run plants and a network of contract manufacturers. Exhibit C displays a simplified example of Mattel’s supply chain after moving production to China. Global production obviously had major benefits for Mattel, the country factors of China gave it a comparative cost advantage over producing in the U.S., and outsourcing enabled Mattel to remain profitable in an increasingly competitive toy industry. However, outsourcing does have disadvantages, a global supply chain increases the challenges to regulate and enforce quality.

China’s underdeveloped infrastructure, in particular the land transport system and connection between different forms of transportation, slowed down distribution, increased logistic costs, and finally hindered expansion into rural regions (p.13). As a result of this slow transportation, Wal-Mart’s two distribution centers couldn’t serve the entire country adequately. On the other hand, these distribution centers were significantly underused due to small amount of stores. Consequently, the retailer couldn’t benefit from cost saving through its distribution approach (p.14). Furthermore, communication with the retailer’s 15,000 local suppliers was inefficient and costly due to the lack of an information-technology network (p.14).

Additionally, there were other distinct viewpoints, such as the different prespectives of the authors. There were two different views, one was a philosopher’s viewpoint and another was a government official’s viewpoint. To begin with, the Han philosophers and government officials always had a positive perspective. For instance, in document three, it mentions “Later on, the pestle and the mortar were cleverly improved in such a way that the whole weight of the body could be used, thus increasing the efficiency ten times.” The Chinese appear to note that innovation is of extraordinary advantage; subsequently they’re continuously making technological advancements. This Philosopher had Confucian beliefs, which swayed his judgement because Confucianism

Now we can apply Little’s Law to calculate the throughput time which is equal to the manufacturing lead time in this case.

Apple Inc. is one of the largest technology companies in the world. The company develops consumer electronic gadgets such as smartphones, computers, desktops, laptops, iPods and tablets. The company was formed in 1976 by Steve Jobs with an intention of making computers but later it changed its focus to include the manufacturing of consumer electronics. However, the company was dealt a big blow when its chief executive officer and founder Steve Jobs died. The company will therefore have to search for ways in which it will maintain its market dominance as well as capture new and emerging markets. This research therefore seeks to establish how Apple forecasts demand and manages its inventory (Apple Computer Inc., 2006).

The globalized business environment has determined companies to develop complex strategies intended to address the challenges determined by these factors. The increased competition in most business fields requires that companies develop flexible strategies that are able to address the changing conditions of the environment. The same situation applies to the telecommunication industry.

Reportedly, analysts mentioned that Cisco’s supply chain structured like a pyramid. Based on Figure 2 below, there were quite a number of contract manufacturers on the second tier who were responsible for final assembly and they were dependent on large sub-tier companies for components such as processor chips and optical gear. And in turn, those companies were dependent on an even larger base of commodity

The combination of the state-of-the-art products and a rapidly expanding market resulted in AMT’s sales growth in excess of 30% per year. Sales volume, which had grown continuously from the start, was always large in relation to available capital. The situation was worsening by large operating losses.

Using Little’s Formula we have done Lead Time Analysis (Exhibit 4) which shows that on an average Lead Time is approximately 2 days (2.10). As we have seen, throughput on the other hand is approximately 6 days which is much higher than the average Lead Time. This suggests that the longer throughput time is because of allocation problems described

What is the right supply chain for your product ? is the question asked by Marshall L. Fisher in his article titled, “What is the Right Supply Chain for Your Product ?” published in March-April 1997 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Author raises the question stating the fact that new ideas and technology implemented haven’t lead to improved performance. Performance has not become better but rather in at least some cases, has worsened due to costs rocketing to unprecedented levels.

And the reason of it was still the cost. Indeed, this former strategices failed to match their product characteristics with their supply priorities. That is, it cannot minimize their product cost. For example, using Japanese suppliers before was twenty to thirty percent more empensive than using Chinese suppliers, not to mention about the trasportation cost. In addition, their original Japanese design was still increasing the cost in China’s factories ----- increase equipment cost cannot make good use of the cheaper labor cost in China; increase producing cost by designing unnecessary function in China.

From incorporation in 1984 until around 2004, Cisco monopolized the industry of commercial routers and networking products. However, competition from rising giants like Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR), Nortel Networks Corp (NT) and to some extent also Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) has given Cisco growing competition. Cisco is now in a position where competition drives its operating practices and inspires constant improvements in areas such as customer service and sales/marketing in order to maintain its market leadership. Though Cisco has lost market share to rising competitors, overall outlook remains good with new product lines set for production.

Lucent Technologies supply chain in Asia had many issues back in1996 and once it became independent from AT&T; some of which were long lead times, high cost, high inventories, poor technical support for local Asian operations and its customers. This was a consequence of the historical supply of Asia from the United States. The establishment of local Asian facilities was only as an entry mean to the Asian market. Even though the facilities provided some high-level assembly and test, the supply chain was organized and centered on the U.S. leading to the problems mentioned earlier. A change was required and thus a supply chain redesign was completed in 1996, providing more Asian content. The change had a successful payback; however, developing changes in the marketplace, in suppliers, and in the manufacturing environment suggested that the supply chain was no longer optimal.

We are all aware about the importance of supply, manufacturing and operations chain for any business. It becomes even more important if we are crossing the borders and entering international marketplaces as we are

Because of the extremely intricate and sophisticated nature of manufacturing semiconductors, a competitor should expect high initial capital requirements to build facilities needed for production. Cost to build a new semiconductor fab has gone up from $200 million in 1985 to $3 Billion in 2004. Incumbent companies have capabilities to design newer generations of semiconductors with greater amounts of memory and processing abilities that make older generations obsolete. Older generations tend to drop half their amount in price one year after a new model is reduced (exhibit 6). The United States