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| Research Career : Supply Chain Management |
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Supply Chain Management
Introduction |
Sweet - The Pros |
N' Sour - The Cons |
In most industries, competition is high and margins are low. What this means is that the company has to get the finished good across to the consumer at minimum cost and at the same time come out tops on the customer service level index.
Some of the issues that constantly harass a planner are
How do I predict demand for different products at different sale locations.
Assume the planner does a good job of forecasting demand. Now he has to ensure that the supply chain is geared up to manufacturing and distributing the products in line with the forecasts.
Let’s dig a little deeper. What if the company has multiple plants, multiple modes of transport. Throw in capacity and raw material constraints. Put in limited storage space and scarce handling resources. And while the planner is struggling to come up with a feasible plan, point the ‘minimum cost’ gun to his head.
Essentially supply chain management is all about effectively managing the above issues to ensure that the right product reaches the right location at the right time at minimum cost. Remember here, that while a standard set of supply chain questions would plague every industry, there would be some issues which are peculiar to each industry. What ‘Supply Chain Management’ would break down to in terms of broad responsibility areas in a company would be
Demand planning where sales, marketing and logistics people work out the product forecasts
Master Planning where keeping capacity and raw material constraints in mind, one decides which plant is going to make what product and by what date
Production Planning where given the plant level production targets, a planner would figure out a master production schedule and a raw material procurement plan while maximizing asset usage and throughput.
Distribution Planning which decides the dispatch plan from plants to stocking points. An integral part of a distribution planners job would be to manage inventories as well
Vendor Management
And of course, one has to constantly monitor the associated performance metrics.
Introduction |
Sweet - The Pros |
N' Sour - The Cons |
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