Journal of Supply Chain management and other Business issues
BASF Case Study Challenges in Supply Chain Management
Thomas Schuster, Daan Cramer, Niek Nigg, Bart van Gorp, Myrthe Jansen, Alla Lashmanova, under the supervision of Dr. Peter Bollen
University College Maastricht Business Press, Universiteit Maastricht
Zwingelput 4, 6220 MD Maastricht
Abstract. This paper primarily discusses and analyzes theories and implications of supply chain management. A case study of the German chemical company BASF is going to illustrate main concerns regarding the topic of logistics and especially outlines the challenges and problems companies face when expanding in other geographical areas. BASF failed to realize the importance of an efficient
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[5] The sixties of the last century brought a change in BASF's strategy. In this decade, production sites were progressively created or acquired abroad in order to increase market share and start an expansion abroad without investing enormous amount of financial resource as well as time. International relations were already established as early as in the beginning of the nineteenth century, however. At that time the company strongly extended its scope of manufacturing as well as marketing, and progressively created production facilities in certain geographical regions in order to focus on customer proximity. The main growth centers of this international approach were North America, Australia, and South-East Asia as the most important region. [1]
2.2 Company Structure
Every product category at BASF is governed by a separate operating division such as Engineering plastics, industrial chemicals, coatings & colorants, etc. Additional support is ascertained with functional division. These divisions handle accounting, finance, planning & controlling tasks, human resources, and many other supplementary tasks. Later parts of this paper are especially going to focus on the logistical challenges, which were mostly apparent in the South Eastern Asian regions. Further, the expansions in various geographical regions lead to the creation of regional departments or regional divisions. In total, there are 14 subdivisions that handle individual group companies. The individual group
Recognized as one of the leading computer manufacturers, Dell uses an astonishing supply chain through pull-to-order procurement and just-in-time inventory management. Their strategy is highly efficient and drives costs to a minimum while allowing for minimal lead times and production times of under 4 hours for each order as their suppliers maintain levels of inventory based on forecasts within Dell warehouses near Dell assembly
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Volume 7, Number 5, 2002, pp. 271 – 282;
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 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
Logistics and supply chain management is an important aspect of a firm’s strategy for the business to achieve success by creating value throughout the logistics and supply chain. The research paper will outline the concepts that are involved in creating the logistics and supply management framework. The logistics and supply chain management strategies will drive success for the company towards fulfilling and supporting customer needs, procurement and manufacturing operations of the firm.
Beitler, J. R., Guérin, C., Ayzac, L., Mancebo, J., Bates, D. M., Malhotra, A., & Talmor, D.
The second chapter includes the literature reviews that are used as a basis for answering the research problems. The literature review provides the theoretical foundation for this research. The theories are strongly related to the topic and purpose of the thesis, which covers the definitions, functions, and advantages of Supply Chain Management and the performance metrics of Supply Chain Operations Reference, followed by proposed conceptual model.
Bozarth, C., & Handfield, R. (n.d.). Introduction to operations and supply chain management (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
In recent years, logistics has been identified as having the potential to become the next governing element of corporate strategy to create value for customers, generate cost savings, enforce discipline in marketing efforts and extend the flexibility of production and information technology helps to improve the logistics management.
Qinghai Liu, Ryan Radwanski, Robin Babadjouni, Peter Baumbacher, Shuhan He, Jonathan Russin, Todd Morgan, Constantinos Sioutas, Caleb Finch, William J. Mack
Heinzel, S., Lawrence, J. B., Kallies, G., Rapp, M. A., & Heissel, A. (2015). Using
The overall objective of this chapter is to give the reader a sense of the importance of purchasing and the supply chain and how they fit in to and impacts the business environment.
(What do you think the author is trying to demonstrate or bring out in the case?)
4. In a service supply chain, the (explicit) cost of information is higher than in a product
For some countries like Vietnam, the definition of supply chain management is still not that well-known enough to apply. Some administrators have just been familiar with the term “logistics” and applied them for all the goods flows. However, supply chain system includes product development, manufacturing, purchasing, inventory, goods distribution and logistics activities. In other words, logistics is just a component of the supply chain. Ganeshan and Harrison (1995) defined that a process from purchasing raw materials, converting them to finished goods and distributing them customers. It is used in both service and manufacturing organizations. For example, a customer goes to Citymart to buy G7 3-in-1 coffee. The supply chain will start from the demand of this customer. Since Citymart has stored a certain amount of this type of coffee to supply, which may be provided from another merchant or directly from