SM C101 Chapter 1 Page 29 Internet Questions
1. Visit the websites of companies like Wal-Mart, Dell and Home Depot, and see if you can find discussions of their supply chain management activities. List information you can find on purchasing/supplier issues, logistics, information systems, quality and customer service.
Purchasing/supplier issues: Wal-Mart always emphasized the need to reduce its purchasing costs and offer the best price to its customers. The company procured goods directly from manufacturers, bypassing all intermediaries. Wal-Mart was a tough negotiator on prices and finalized a purchase deal only when it was fully confident that the products being bought were not available elsewhere at a lower price. Wal-Mart spent a
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According to the Wal-Mart website, Wal-Mart trains its employees on excellent customer skills. Wal-Mart believes that if customers gets what they want at a good price, this will keep them coming back to the store.
2. Search on the term supply chain management. How many hits did you get? Describe five of the websites found in your search.
How many hits?- only 247,000,000
5 of the websites--What is Supply Chain Management? Describing what supply chain management is. -- The hot new M.B.A.: Supply-Chain Management. Goes into how universities have recently introduced undergraduate majors for supply chain management. -- Council of Supply Chain management Professionals: Homepage. They provide education, research, connections for supply chain management. -- Module 1: What is Supply Chain Management? It’s a YouTube video introducing viewers to the field of SCM. -- Supply Chain Management Certificate. Describes what SCM is and offers advanced professional supply chain management certificate.
3. Go to www.agrichain–centre.com (or a similar website found when searching on New Zealand supply chain management), and discuss the current state of supply chain (or value chain) management in New Zealand.
- I went to the site I didn’t see anything on the current state of supply mgmt..
4. Search for the term bullwhip effect and write a paper on the impacts of the bullwhip
Wal-Mart being one of the big company get its supplies cheaply and in a large quantity. This disables other supermarkets to compete with Wal-Mart. Where ever a Wal-Mart opens, many other stores close down because all their customers have been stolen by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn’t pay its employees enough money to support their families’ because the wages are not designed to support a family. Even though, it can afford wage increases they still don’t do it.
Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2012). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
a. This particular industry has a constantly increasing cost. There will be an increase in the demand for input factors for one key reason. Every day, new companies will be introduced into this market of remodeling, economic profits being the encouraging factor. Because of this, there will be a bid up on input prices for the companies in the industry of remodeling. “When a market is characterized by a large number of small producers, the demand curve facing the manager of each individual firm is horizontal at the price determined by the
Research the responsiveness issue in supply chains (push, pull, and postponement strategies). Define each strategy and discuss the major differences between them. Name some companies that use each strategy. Do not just use the textbook for your answers.
List and explain all aspects of supply chain management. pg 416; week5 lecture, pg 4;
In addition to these assigned readings, you're also encouraged to read industry publications such as Supply Chain Brain, Logistics Management, TalkingLogistics and Supply Chain Management Review (all are available online) to learn about breaking news and developments in the field. If you read something in these magazines or other publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Economist or Business Week, which relates to a class topic, share it with the class. As time permits, we'll spend a few minutes at the beginning of class discussing current news and developments.
Accordingly, they can decide how much they want to pay for a certain good and if it is still realistic they will find a producer or supplier. They can order different suppliers to their headquarter and let them negotiate with each other until they have found the producer who is able to sell for the lowest price. Forasmuch, the suppliers have then usually a very small profit margin, but a lot of sales. Nevertheless, Walmart tries to give the discount that they get to the customers. For Walmart, the saving pressure is helpful to grow, make more profit and being successful, but for the employees it is unacceptable as they get not paid very well and various of them do not get a health insurance. The salary of a normal working person at Walmart is not enough to have enough money for themselves and one child. That might result in dissatisfaction and they are less motivated in their work. The customers are treated worse and it is often dirty what could be another reason to hate the
1. Study the networked supply chain concept as implemented by Cisco. What are its strengths and weaknesses?
W.C. Benton, J. (2010). Purchasing and Supply Chain Management (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Simchi, D., Kaminsky, P., Shankar, R. (2008). Designing and managing the supply chain: concepts, strategies, and case studies, 3, 384-385.
My initial thought on the matter is that Walmart’s business model is more than beneficial towards consumers. As a customer I’m always on the lookout for a better deal, and by scraping those essential pennies off of their prices Walmart has created an environment entirely conducive towards me saving more money than I would if I shopped elsewhere that day. As a result of Walmart’s “always low prices” there are huge amounts of people who give their time (and more importantly, their money) to the superstore chain.
Many companies produce products from parts of raw materials that are purchased from suppliers, till these products are reach the markets and presented for the customers, then you have the supply chain starting from the purchase of raw material from different areas , through the manufacturing steps and stages till is being sold by the consumer. Some of supply chains are well defined and easy to determined, while there are other supply chains complex to analyze. However, supply chains vary with the size of the facility such as; complexities, performance, abilities, flexibility, quality, speed, dependability and cost of preparing goods for manufacturing and the chain length distribution. So the supply chain is a network of wholesalers, retailers, distributors, workers in the transport, storage facilities, suppliers, and manufacturers who participate in the production, delivery and sale of the product to the last consumer. A supply chain is a group of facilities that coordinate activities among it and to avoid the competitors. Moreover, to ensure the supply chain management is operating efficiently and generating the highest level of customer
Wal-Mart is arguably the most dynamic corporation in the last 50 years in the United States, if not the world. Arising from its beginnings in Bentonville, Arkansas, it has grown to over 4,400 discount stores, super centers and corner markets worldwide. Wal-Mart continues to expand despite public criticism of its labor practices as well as complaints about their treatment of competitors. The many strengths of Wal-Mart, like their low cost production and marketing practices, will aid Wal-Mart as it continues to grow in the retail
Wal-Mart constructs its associations with suppliers in light of legitimate, proficient and reasonable business practices (Wikinvest, 2005). The choice of suppliers is normally made on the premise that they meet the requisite criteria, including - quality, competitive pricing, delivery, adhering to a time schedule, and suitability of merchandise (Wikinvest, 2005). It should be noted that Wal-Mart does not conduct business with prior associates for a time of five years after the party 's disassociation from Wal-Mart if there exists conflict of interest between the associate 's previous position at Wal-Mart and the associate 's new position with a supplier (Wikinvest, 2005).
Supply chain management involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. The dozens of steps are required to achieve and carry out each of the above components. SCM software can enable an organization to generate efficiencies within these steps by automating and improving the information flows throughout and among the different supply chain components.