The Effects of an Aor (Action-Observation-Reflection) Based Supplier Monitoring Program on the Quality of Strategic Supplier Performance.

1. The paper fulfills the purpose of the assignment as described in the syllabus and in this document (up to 10 points)

Organisations around the world are increasingly operating in very dynamic business environments. Among the areas that are being monitored is the way raw materials for production are procured and how the finished products reach the market and eventually the consumer. This paper will provide a review of published documents on strategic procurement in organizations by providing a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of their findings. The paper will present the impacts of the findings of the reviewed articles on the activities of an organisation that operates in a business to customer industry. And also a supermarket will be used in this case.

* The first two assignments (Stages I and II of the project) are worth 100 points each.

Supply-Chain Management is the activities that procure materials and services, and transform them into intermediate goods and final products and deliver them, through a distribution system (Heizer & Render, 2011, p. 452). DELL is a computer technology corporation that develops sells, repairs and supports, computers and computer related products. DELL has realized that supply chain is becoming more and more important for the success of today’s business world and they work accordingly to keep a competitive advantage in the market. This study will examine to what extent Dell has used supply chain management to gain and retain a competitive advantage in the computer market.

The topic selected is (Strategic Procurement & Supply Chain Management). For this study, we have selected Toyota Motor Corporations as our company of choice. Toyota is without doubt the best in the world, with its many philosophies and principles on how to make the best out of the least; JIT, lean production and elimination of waste and the desire for continuous improvement are just a few ways how Toyota has become the best in the auto industry. Toyota as a name, a company, and as a brand has become synonymous with Quality.

Strategic sourcing is the first thing that is combined with the strategic supplier management and there is the effective day to day purchasing with the outcomes of supply chain management. The organization is able to create and develop new advantages with better and effective roles as well as relationship. It chooses the innovation and leads to the marketplace with strategic efforts on sourcing.

Unlike traditional supplier/buyer relationships that had a narrow focus, contemporarily such relationships are becoming more strategic thereby yielding adequate reduction of risk and good technological leverage etc. It should be recognized that this relationship is the most powerful process of consumer satisfaction.

1. Amarpreet, S. (2010). Assessing Effectiveness of Supply Chain Collaboration: An Empirical Study. Available at www.supplychain-forum.com

Global business environment has become more unstable, supplier negotiations have taken important new role on helping improve corporate competitiveness. The goal of most supplier negotiations today is no longer just to get the lowest price. It is also to find new and innovative ways to meet a wide variety of business challenges, often by tapping into the knowledge and expertise of the supplier community and a good relationship.

Effective supply chain management can provide an important competitive advantage for a business marketer, resulting in improved communication and involvement among members of the chain, increased motivation, and decreased costs. Tracking the movement of and demand for components used to manufacture a product across a variety of potential and actual suppliers, provides insight and the ability to respond instantly to shortages, surpluses, and changes in market conditions. It seeks to optimize production, decrease manufacturing time, minimize inventory, streamline order fulfillment, and reduce cost.

However, this study only focus on operations dimension performance not for the supply chain as a whole. The measurement of performance of SCM entities can be improved by using a more balanced perspective as provided for by the BSC framework (Chia et al., 2009). This study apply balanced score card (BSC) approach on the logistics industry in order to measure supply chain performance but the results may not be representative of the individual clusters. In order to deliver a comprehensive performance measurement framework for SME’s, BSC and SCOR model must be integrated (Thakkar et al., 2009). This study relates the performance measurement with several supply chain cycles such as procurement, manufacturing, replenishment and customer order. However, this study does not cover the decision making levels. Supply chain performance has significant relationship with market orientation such as customer focus, competitor-oriented and cross-functional coordination (Lin et al., 2010) but this study only focus on innovation

Most companies lack the ability to quickly contact each outsourced supplier, vendor or licencee in their supply chain. Many companies have done alot of work in the area of managing global supply chains better. A web based Supplier Ethical Management (SEM) platform has been developed which allows companies to maintain contact information for most or all of its suppliers and communicate critical information to them on a regular basis. Using an SEM platform is probably

"Despite the odds, Toyota and Honda have managed to replicate in an alien Western culture the same kind of supplier webs they built in Japan. Consequently, they enjoy the best supplier relations in the U.S. automobile industry…." (page 3 of the Liker & Choi article). Briefly describe the authors' explanation for why Toyota and Honda succeeded where the "Big 3" failed in terms of effective supplier relationship management. Do you agree with Liker & Choi's assessment? Please explain why or why not. Are there any barriers to prevent Ford and GM from emulating Toyota and Honda's approach to supplier relationship management?

Supply change management (SCM) is active in many organizations today. The purpose of SCM is to maximize the company value in order maintain a competitive advantage in the market place. As an Operational Managers (OM) it is essential to oversee the supply chain within an organization. The OM responsibility is to manage the supply chain flow, and to ensure the supply chain has a quality design in order to reduce cost and drive efficiency. (Reid & Sanders, 2010) An organization supply chain includes activities such as product development, sourcing, productions, logistics, material, and other information systems needed to coordinate the movement of goods from suppliers to manufactures, and to final customers.

I certify that this literature review is my own work and contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any institute, college or university. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the dissertation.