Bus 3384 Supply Chain

The main elements of a supply chain include purchasing, operations, distribution, and integration. The supply chain begins with purchasing. Purchasing managers or buyers are typically responsible for determining which products their company will sell, sourcing product suppliers and vendors, and procuring products from vendors at prices and terms that meets profitability goals.

Supply chains are networks of organisations, information, technologies, activities and resources involved in the movement and conversion of physical goods or services from suppliers to end consumers. These different organisations are interlinked by physical, information and monetary flows. Organisations create value by transforming raw products into finished goods or repositioning of resources thru space and time, which is based on networks of supply chains. Both ways, it involves the movement and conversion of physical goods and information throughout supply chains across the world. Therefore organisations and supply chains are closely interlinked in the creation of value for its customers. Manufacturing firms produce goods for

Supply chains must be managed to coordinate the inputs with the outputs in a firm to achieve the appropriate competitive priorities of the firm’s enterprise processes. The Internet offers firms an alternative to traditional methods for managing supply chains. A supply chain strategy is essential

The law should compel all the manufacturers to abide by the safety and quality standards. Any manufacturer who is found culpable of violating these rules should face stiffer penalty including revocation of trading license. Moreover, all products must be tested against the quality and safety standards before they are released on the market.

Ensure that business partners, including vendors and third-party producers, work in line with our quality standards.

Richard Dana Associates (RDA) was brought in by the owners of a family-owned business with complex relationship issues at a time preceding an anticipated leadership transition. Following individual and group coaching sessions, RDA was able to help the leadership separate personal issues, and codify practices through formal policies to allow the leadership group to focus on business issues without personal complications. At the end of RDA's engagement, the client was well-positioned to begin developing a transition plan.

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.

obvious examples, but we also see successful product innovation where we least expect it. For instance, in the traditionally functional category of food, companies such as Ben & Jerry 's, Mrs. Fields, and Starbucks Coffee Company have tried to gain an edge with designer flavors and innovative concepts. Century Products, a leading manufacturer of children 's car seats, is another company that brought innovation to a functional product. Until the early 1990s, Century sold its seats as functional items. Then it introduced a wide variety of brightly colored fabrics and designed a new seat that would move in a crash to absorb energy and protect the child sitting in it.

Suppliers: Suppliers or vendors are those persons or firms who supply inputs like new materials, certain parts, etc. to the company. The vendor quality and reliability is a must for the smooth functioning of the business. They should supply all inputs of right quality and stated quantity in time.

The global supply chain network is often faces challenges in many directions. Currently the environmental issues and the exhaustion of natural resources leads to complications and become the prime factors which affects the cost, time and effort in global logistics and supply chain management. An analysis of the Montreal based Cirque de soleil is done with various factors and criteria for evaluation of the key issues. The key issues are distribution complexities, increasing transportation cost, production inefficiency, delivery lead times and logistics partnership strategies. The objective is to streamline the global supply chain network by redesigning the existing system with new integrated model using CPFR (Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment). This concept is effectively supported by the SAP System which integrates the demand management, better sales forecasting, effective distribution and timely replenishment.

As firms increasingly rely on extended networks of suppliers to produce and deliver products and services to customers, it becomes increasingly difficult to control what happens in supply chains outside their boundaries with respect to the quality of supplied materials. Note, for instance, the recent recalls of products ranging from automotive to toys to drugs and food. These recalls emphasize on the need to pay close attention to quality management (QM) issues in the supply chains (Roth et al., 2008).Superior features and quality, as well as superior customer service, are ways that SMEs often use to differentiate their products and services from Large Enterprises. Supply chain inefficiency is one of the most prevalent issues facing the small- to mid-size enterprise (Levy, 2011).

Definitions of Supply chain and logistics theory and methodologies are pointed out with some commentaries and critics of each part that this report is divided into.

* According to Handfield and Nicols 1999, the nature of how supply chains are defined as “supply chain contains all activities that involve the flow and transformation from raw materials”. Following on from this description I will describe the nature, first of all, the supply chain is a network of facilities that distribute and output the performance from their findings of raw materials that which associates themselves with the products that already exist in supply chains. It allows the transportation from one supplier to the consumer to be handed in time as well as to towards the final customer.

Most supply chain management networks are very basic in it’s make up you have a factory or manufacture, a distributor or distribution center, a wholesaler and a retailer. The factory or the manufacture is responsible for making sure that it has enough inventory on hand at all times to supply the distributors that depend on them to keep them supplied with inventory. It is up to the manufacture to make sure that they have the raw materials that they need to product whatever product the distributors are relying on them to provide them.

The three major phases of the production network, acquisition, generation and circulation, have been overseen freely, cushioned by extensive inventories. Expanding focused weights, and business globalization are constraining firms to create supply chains that can rapidly react to client needs. To stay focused, these organizations must decrease working expenses while persistently enhancing client administration. With late advances in correspondences and data innovation, and a quickly developing show of logistics choices, firms have a chance to lessen working expenses by arranging the arranging of these stages.