Supply chain management Flashcards
Improving operational performance (3)
- Speed of response
- Dependability
- Flexibility
Mass customisation -
- producing on a large scale while still enabling individual customer preferences to be met
Inventory -
Examples (3)
- refers to the stock that a business holds; include the raw materials and other items necessary for production to take place; might also include the finished products that have not been sold yet
1. Materials and supplies
2. Semi-finished items during a production process
3. Finished products
Influences on the amount of inventory held (4)
- Storage cost
- Security cost
- Opportunity cost
- Cost of losing value
Inventory control charts (4)
- The buffet inventory - minimum amount of inventory a business wants to hold
- The lead time - how long it takes to from an order being placed with suppliers and the items arriving
- The re-order level - the level at which a new order must be placed for supplies
- Re-order quantities - amount a manager orders of a particular item
Problems with suppliers (3)
- Supplies are delayed and do not arrive on time
- The usage rate is faster than usual
- Failure to re-order inventory
Technology and inventory control (3)
- Better track
- Better forecast marketing databases
- Communication links
Managing supply to match demand (6)
- Employing a flexible workforce (employees are multi - skilled and have flexible contracts)
- Using queuing systems or introducing waiting lists to manage high levels of demand
- Outsourcing production to other businesses to meet high levels of orders
- Increasing prices to reduce demand
- Accepting orders to produce for others if the demand is low
- Producing to order
Managing the supply chain (7)
- What to produce yourself and what to buy from others
- Which other business to work with
- A supplier strategy
- Setting out terms and conditions of the supplier relationship
- Deciding on the assurance from the supplier on their operations
- How much direct involvement to have with supplier
- How centralised purchasing should be
Effective management (3)
- The right supplies arrive on time
- A fair price is paid
- The products are produced in a way which is acceptable to business
The value of managing the supply chain effectively will affect (4)
- The extent to which suppliers meet the requirements of the business reliably
- The costs of the business
- The ability of the business to be flexible to customer requirements
- Ethical issues
Vertical integration -
- one business joins together with another business at a different stage of the same production process
Influences on choosing a supplier (3)
- Cost of material and quality
- Dependability
- Ethical considerations
Corporate social responsibility -
- refers to the extent to which a business takes into account its stakeholders views and accepts its obligations to society over and above the legal requirements
The changing supply chain:
Managers need to be able to track back more of their suppliers to know the answers to customer’s main questions. Managers are being held accountable for more and more of the supply chain and there are greater demand for transparency. Total globalisation allows to find suppliers all over the world which then can make a supply chain very complex and hard to track even with the newest technologies. Developments in technology also allows many customers to buy products directly from the provider.