An Analysis of Ford Motor Company: Supply Chain Strategy.
Executive Summary As competition in the automobile industry escalated throughout the 1990's, automakers sought to leverage the emergence of information technologies to lower costs and deliver a richer customer experience. Ford, the number two automaker in the world, was no exception and saw computer maker, Dell Corporation, as a benchmark for aggressive use of emerging technologies to increase shareholder value and improve customer responsiveness. Teri Takai's responsibility as Director of Supply Chain Systems was to explore opportunities for incorporating such information technologies to achieve these corporate goals and to find the optimal level of investment in technology that would maximize the return on investment. Takai's decision was further complicated by the opinions formed by two factions within the Company, one group decidedly in favor of moving towards utilizing information technology to create a new procurement system and the other group more cautious given the differences between the auto industry and the newer technology oriented companies that successfully utilized this strategy. Our analysis leads us to conclude that Takai should aggressively pursue the strategy of adopting a "virtual integration model" consistent with that of Dell's by restructuring Ford's supply chain and vendor relationships. However, due to the inherent differences between Ford and
Wal-Mart's Unique Approach to Supply Chain Management
Wal-Mart's Unique Approach to Supply Chain Management Retail super-giant Wal-Mart has fought its way to becoming the world's largest company. Much of their success can be attributed to providing a vast assortment of products at exceptional prices all under one roof. Wal-Mart began operations in 1964 and has since become the world leader in retail. Today, Wal-Mart is visited by 138 million customers per week at their 4,750 stores. Wal-Mart operates under four basic rules in order to satisfy such a large number of customers: Respect the individual, provide the best service to their customers, strive for excellence, and exceed customer expectations. Their corporate mission focuses on a global growth strategy through concentrated integration. The company continues to expand its existing discount stores, warehouses, and super-centers. The company maintains two goals: First, Provide the customer with what they want, when they want it, all at value and secondly, team spirit through total dependency on associates to treat customers as they would want to be treated. Their business strategy is to provide well-known name brands at an everyday low price. Wal-Mart has a wide range of products offered. They offer everything from electronics, movies, books, toys, games, gardening supplies, home supplies, photo development, gifts, jewelry, and at some locations even automobile,
Supply Chain Management for Kinley Project
2010 PROJECT ANALYSTS ALTAYE TEKELMICHAEL DIAN VEGAWATI MERRY OKTARINA TABLE OF CONTENTS . INTRODUCTION 2 2. DISTRIBUTION CENTRE LOCATION 2 2.1 United Kingdom 3 2.2 Slovakia 3 2.2 Germany 3 3. MAKE OR BUY ANALYSIS 4 3.1 Capacity and Knowledge 4 3.2 Product 4 3.3 Cost Perspectives 4 3.4 Benefits 4 3.5 Disadvantages 5 4. TYPE OF RELATIONSHIP 5 4.1 Procurement Strategy 5 4.2 Retailer Supplier Partnership 6 5. RISK MANAGEMENT 7 5.1 Natural Disaster 7 5.2 Terrorist Attack 8 5.3 Market Change 8 5.4 Port Delays 8 5.5 Supplier Performance 8 6. RISK MITIGATION STRATEGIES 8 6.1 Dealing with Unknown-Unknown Situation 8 6.2 Global Risk 8 6.3 Control 9 7. RECOMMENDATION 9 APPENDIX 1 10 APPENDIX 2 13 APPENDIX 3 14 SOURCES 15 . INTRODUCTION Kinley is one of the leading manufacturers in peripherals and connectivity solutions for users of computers and consumer electronics in the world. Since its establishment, Kinley has become the market leader across its production line. Nowadays, with a single European distribution centre in United Kingdom, where it was largest market in Europe and meets market demands for 2.000 to 3.000 ships to send to Europe. However, as one of the fastest growing companies in the world, Kinley Management's forecast of market demands will be higher in the future. In order to response market needs, Kinley would anticipate future
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Polymerase Chain Reaction "Investigate what PCR is - how has it revolutionised molecular biology and give several examples of how it is used?" PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction. This is a technique devised by Cary Mullis for cloning genes in a test tube without involving bacteria - and instead uses DNA polymerases (enzymes) to make multiple copies of a DNA strand. The polymerases must be able to function at high temperatures, so the enzymes are usually obtained from thermophilic bacteria such as Thermus aquaticus. To obtain the DNA, the sample of cells is placed into a solution, and solution is boiled, so the DNA is released. The DNA to be copied is placed in solution, and the temperature of this solution is then raised to 95?c to separate the two strands of DNA. The solution is then mixed with DNA polymerase, and nucleotides. Some short nucleotide sequences which act as a "start" signal for replication (primers) are also added to the solution. The temperature of the solution is slowly lowered to 53?c, to allow primers to bind to DNA. The temperature is then raised again to 73?c to enable thermostable polymerase to replicate DNA. This cycle of temperature changes is repeated about 20 times. Gene amplification begins with double-stranded DNA. Denaturing - This DNA is then heated, making the strands separate. Short segments of DNA (primers) attach to
HP Case Study - Deskjet Printer Supply Chain.
HEWLETT-PACKARD: DESKJET PRINTER SUPPLY CHAIN Case Analysis Presented to Professor D. Krishna Sunder Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore On November 07th, 2005 In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the course Operations Management By Agila Reddi K (0511072) Arjun Gaur (0511075) Clare Kurian(0512004) Minu Rachel Philip(0511101) Nikhil Menon (0511105) Section B HEWLETT-PACKARD Introduction DeskJet Printer was becoming one of Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company's most successful products. Sales had grown steadily reaching around 600,000 units in 1990. Uneven distribution of inventory was one of the key issues which needed to be addressed since in spite of having distribution centres (DC) filled with printers, organisations in Europe claimed that inventory levels needed to be raised to maintain satisfactory product availability. Also there seemed to be an issue of requiring the buy-in of the various parties on what was the right level of inventory to be maintained. Worldwide sales were about 17 million units which amounted to $10 billion. The US-Western Europe markets were mature while that in Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific were developing markets. The ink-jet printer (DeskJet was one of the products in this category) had around 20% of the retail printer market. HP was the market leader in US while Cannon was in Japan and Europe had competitors like
Production and supply chain of Dell Computers
7415MGT Globalisation and Corporate Social Responsibility How Dell Does It? An Explanatory essay on Production Chain of Dell Computers Abstract The most crucial challenge for any Transnational Corporations to achieve success in today's business world is firstly to recognize, understand and analyse the needs of the different product/market characteristics and then apply a suitable production chain to deliver the said product/service with the greatest customer satisfaction in return. In process of designing and implementation this "Production chain", Transactional corporations face critical issues in context of globalisation. This explanatory essay will investigate on four major topics in regards to globalisation of production chain which are: Factor influencing international location decisions; influence of globalisation on the employee practises involved in the process of production chain; spatial decisions their implications and role of government. In order to illustrate the practical applicability of the subject leading computer manufacturer named Dell Incorporation has been selected. Introduction: Today's world is living in the third stage of the globalisation process. In 1970 the first stage has begun when the financial globalisation started because of a deregulation of financial markets and introduction of advanced computer and telecommunication technologies as a
UK Food Supply Chain Concerns and Resolutions: Retailer Power
UK Food Chain - UK Food Supply Chain Concerns and Resolutions: Retailer Power This paper is written as a summary to the UK Food Chain chapter in the initial Cabinet Office's discussion paper entitled 'Food: an analysis on the issues'1with further analysis of the supply chain conducted through an interpretation and commentary on additional papers on the topic. The main issues addressed will include an analysis of the current market trends highlighting upon several literatures including the Competition Commissions 'supermarkets' report published in 20002 and by taking this into a supply chain perspective, trends and concerns in the UK Food Chain will be outlined. The paper then offers some potential recommendations into ways the Government can act to prevent distortion of competition within the market and ensure the protection of suppliers. Solutions to the trends in the market will be drawn and adapted from the Competition Commission's 'Provisional Notice of Remedies' publication released in early 2008. Competition within grocery retailing has consolidated over time and as a result, selections of large food retailers have acquired 75% of the market share according to TNS (2007). In relation to this, fifty percent of the larger suppliers have to rely upon supermarkets to make up a vast majority of their sales. Since then, multiple retailers now lead the supply chain. They
Supply Chain Management is managing the flow of goods and information along the supply chain, from procurement at source to delivery and service to the end customer.
University of Ulster Coleraine Faculty of Business & Management. Supply Chain Management (BMG514C2) Aislinn Newcombe Co-ordinator: Dr Patrick Ibbotson Submission: 31st March 2004 Words: 3,500 Introduction Supply Chain Management is: "... managing the flow of goods and information along the supply chain, from procurement at source to delivery and service to the end customer. ' Supply chain management is understood to be a distinct business management approach or philosophy. There are many definitions of what a supply chain is and what it involves. Cooper and Ellram (1993) describe it as an integrative philosophy to manage the total flow from the supplier to the ultimate user. However it has been recognised that supply chain management does not deal with the chain in its entirety. Christopher (1998) regards supply chain management as the management of upstream and downstream relationships with the suppliers and customers to deliver superior customer value at less cost to the supply chain as a whole. Cox (1999) has recognised that the currently dominant concept for the supply chain is based on operational effectiveness and efficency. Porters Value Chain In the physical world, intermediaries populate the value chain to provide key functions or services: * Aggregating buyers and sellers (e.g., wholesalers and retailers) * Reducing the transaction risks
The Chain Linked Fence
The Chain Linked Fence He was a quiet man, never bothered anyone and hated to be bothered. Walter kept to himself mostly, no one wanted to talk to him and he was never able to find reason for conversation. He was set in his ways, and didn't like change, in fact, he wouldn't stand for it. Walter had had the same daily routine for the better part of his life. He woke promptly at 6 a.m., used the wash room to brush his hair (what was left of it) and his teeth (what was left of them.) After doing this, he went to his closet and picked out his clothes, which always consisted of black pants and a blue dress shirt, like I said, Walter didn't like change. He was your average looking elderly man. The only thing that stuck out was his height; he was a few inches over six feet tall. A once stern face was now covered with ancient wrinkles; he had thick brown glasses, the same prescription as when he was 12, always left a wide intent on his nose. His hair was now gray and barley covered his freckled scalp. A bald spot rested upon the top of his head, he never noticed it, and he didn't want to. After he would dress, he walked down the stairs ignoring the cracks and creaks with every bend of his knee. His first task of the morning was fetching the paper, walking down the porch steps and bending over to pick it up was now becoming a hardship he didn't want, or need. After retrieving
Tecsave supermarket chain
Tecsave supermarket chain Introduction Tecsave is in a supermarket chain. It is in an industry dominated by 5 large firms and is currently it is second in terms of its share of the market. Robbie Peers founded it in 1947 as a sole trader. It has just 1 green grocery shop in the midlands. In 1957 Tecsave became a private limited company, by which time they owned 56 shops all sited in the midlands. In 1965 it became a plc. By 2002 the company owned 187 supermarkets in the UK. Tecsave has a number of rivals to compete with in the supermarket industry such as Safeway's, Asda and Morrisions. Which means they need good quality products too sell in order for future developments and growth that will help it to achieve top position in the market ranking when it comes to market shares. I have chosen to promote the video & computer games industry Market research Questionnaires are helpful in the way that we know what the consumer's what/would like to have in there local Tecsave store. If we didn't have them we could be selling all the wrong goods which would make our profit go down. I am going to go around the local game shops including GAME, Gamestation, PC world, Virgin megastores and Asda. To collect information on how much the games are and how they promote a product and what advertisement they use e.g. T.V, Radio, billboards and magazines. Desk research means
