This report is about guiding companies to become successful in managing their supply chain by firstly to set for their company aims and business strategies.

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Part A

Introduction

This report is about guiding companies to become successful in managing their supply chain by firstly to set for their company aims and business strategies. Then, focus on effective ways of streamlining the products or services flow through the supply chain pipelines. There are many issues to be concerned of to smooth the process flow along the supply chain pipelines. A particular industry has been chosen to identify the steps made by companies to improve the synchronisation processes and activities across the supply chain. Some barriers of change have been considered based on the suggested new design of supply chain. By referring to the automotive industry supply chain, late configuration of vehicle build for the 3 day car has been clearly specified. There will be changes that are likely to occur in the future. This report has identified the role that web-base technologies may play to make supply chain more efficient and effective.

Company Aims

Every company wants to become successful in business and be the best when compare with the competitors. Not surprisingly, many companies would have the similar aim which is to become a World Class Companies. There is no other ways that companies can straight achieving a success without a good plan. Hence, company strategies need to be well produced and achieve accordingly.

Business Strategies for The New Supply Chain

. Focus on the customers

2. Compete with the world class companies

3. Partnership with the World Class Companies

4. Collaboration with all parties along the supply chain

5. Trust between all parties

6. Synchronise the supply chain

7. Response to change

Major Problems in the supply chain

* Slow in order processing

* Early delivery of products to customer

* Lack of storage space of mass produced products can cause expensive inventory cost

* Customer dissatisfaction

* Late delivery of orders produce overhead cost

* Orders can delivered on time but quality deteriorates

* Customer change orders frequently and this affect the whole supply chain - lack of agility

* Difficult to manage the complex supplier network

* Difficult to achieve right orders at the right cost and on the right time.

Reduce Current Supply Chain Problems by Streamlining The Products/ Services Flow Through the Supply Chain Pipelines

Build to Order Strategy

To remain competitive in the car manufacturing industry for example, it is important that company should focus on its process flows within the supply chain. The automotive industry is required to flow the product along the supply chain from raw material to finished product and ultimately to customer. But, it is rather important to focus on how orders are to be taken and the orders are being processed to reduce error, increase accuracy of information and speed in processing the information. Normally, order processing stage would take about few weeks and remaining few days to produce the car. Today, customer can now place order over the Internet from the company web site and mass customise their orders by completing the web pages. The information obtained can be viewed by all parties connected to company's supply chain. By doing this, it saves time in order processing and reduces it to only one day for customer to take the order, the next day to produce the car and last day to deliver the finished car to the customer. This is known as the 3DayCar. On-line configuration could also speed the incorporation of innovative features and advanced technologies into new products, with automakers able to capture vast amounts of data on consumer preferences that could be fed directly into product development. These data could also trigger offerings of services customized to the needs of that individual. In effect, the customer becomes a co-designer of not only his/her current vehicles but of bundled services and future product offerings as well. A successful "build to order" system will be designed to shape consumer demand by control-ling what choices are offered. Rather than large numbers of individual features, consumers are likely to be presented with configurations of features to choose. The use of Internet can reduce the operational cost and improve process flow through supply chain pipeline.

Modularise Design Complexity

Due to the complexity of design of a car and the systemic characteristics such as NVH (Noise, Voice and Harshness), many designers require an integral approach for the product architecture. This can have standard modules designed to be usable in a wide array of products to compromise design quality with modules having to be designed to meet the highest requirements of the product range. There the integrality has been inbuilt to the functioning of a car. The idea is drawn from the safety system where computer makers are used to unite system functions and geography, e.g. to put all functions related to typing in the single physical unit of the keyboard. The supplier could optimize the design of all the remote components, with the production and installation of those components distributed according to their physical placement in the vehicle. The "system" strategy has the advantage of making the safety system work smoothly, but requires the careful integration of particular parts by the automaker during final assembly. The "modular" strategy could potentially compromise functionality, but allows the car to be divided into large 'chunks' that can be designed and assembled independently and then easily combined in response to customized consumer demand. In favour of modules are the prospects of design efficiencies from the combination of parts and functions that might lead to cost savings. According to Howard Mickey from the executive briefing that current emphasis on vehicle design is on module integration to make more specific models that increase sharing of parts and models standardization. He added that painted door modules, interior modules and roof modules will reduce production lead time. Other cost savings could come with the high volumes associated with modules that were sufficiently standardized to be usable across a wide array of vehicles.
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Modular Production and Mass Customisation Approach

In modular production, suppliers build up modules and deliver them in sequence to the OEM to simplify the final assembly process. The process sequence can potentially be organized so that customization steps are postponed until as late in production as possible, thus allowing for mass production economies at earlier stages. To build customized products will reduce finished goods inventories dramatically. This strategy may require suppliers hold higher levels of parts and work-in-process inventory. OEM access to data on consumer preferences, expressed during order configuration, can potentially improve demand forecasting accuracy, thus ...

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