The Working Ways for Setting a Flexible Workforce - Assignment Example

Supply Chain Questions & Answers 1- What are some obstacles to creating a flexible workforce? What are the benefits? Answer: Lack of senior, semi-retired and adjunct faculty are the leading obstacles to create a flexible workforce. Jacobson and Shelley argued that the employees refuse or are incapable of teaching at universities and senior officials are more interested in full-time jobs (1). As a result, in practice flexible workforce is difficult to create. The benefits of a flexible workforce are less number of salary bills with same number of employees in the time of economic downfall or less demand. 2- Discuss why subcontractors can often offer products and services to a company more cheaply than if the company produced them themselves? Answer: The subcontractors purchase the product or the raw material to develop the product in bulk quantities from the main production facilities of the product. Due to the large quantity, they are offered very low price per piece of product which allows them to offer the product for sale to companies at a price that includes their profit plus cost. This price is very low as compared to the cost borne by the company when developing the product in-house as its not the core product of the company and to develop it the company has to invest heavily to make that product of the required standard. 3- Discuss how you would set up a collaboration mechanism for the enterprises in a supply chain. Answer: Yang and Zhenghzou developed a collaborative mechanism using multi-agent for enterprises in a supply chain (98). They postulated that in a manufacturing enterprise, the “purchasing agent will negotiate with the supply agent for price, quality, delivery time and supplying quota” (Yang and Zhenghzou 2007). This way the suppliers and the enterprise can enjoy gains and profits. 4- Consider a supermarket deciding on the size of its replenishment order from Proctor & Gamble. What cost should it take into account when making this decision? Answer: The replenishment order is triggered to create an order for a vast availability of a product produced through economies of scale to replenish the manufacturer. In this regard, the initial minimum development cost should be taken into consideration to ensure that the manufacturer places the order for replenishment. 5- Discuss how various costs for the supermarket in question 1 change as it decreases the lot size ordered from Proctor & Gamble. Answer: The supermarket purchases the product from the wholesale market for a price. This price along with the further investment over the product in terms of its development, the maintenance and taxes are all covered in the price given to the manufacturer. In case the order size is reduced, the price offered will increase as all of these costs will increase simultaneously. 6- The manager at the supermarket on question 1 wants to decrease the lot size without increasing the cost he incurs. What actions can be taken to achieve this objective? Answer: In order to achieve this objective, the manager will have to reduce the quality of the product used to achieve the final product. The other possible action can be the use of economies of scale to develop the product at lowest possible cost. 7- What is the role of safety inventory in the supply chain? Answer: The safety inventory is the stock that is saved for the purpose of use in the uncertain happenings or unprecedented increase in the demand for the particular product. This safety inventory rescues the supply chain from falling apart in the uncertain times when the stock depletes and their is no source to supply it. 8- Explain how a reduction in lead time can help a supply chain reduce safety inventory without hurting product availability. Answer: When the lead time for making a product transport from one place to another is reduced significantly the product becomes available as soon as the stock reaches a minimum level of availability. Thus, the need for safety inventory is reduced without hurting a product’s availability. 9- What are the pros and cons of the various measures of product availability? Answer: The product fill rate provides product by product report regarding the number of orders have been successfully delivered to the customer. The con of this report is that it does not include any orders that have been canceled or returned by the customer. The order fill rate tells the rate per hour the person in the warehouse assembles each order. It improves performance and productivity but requires close supervision and skill. 10- Describe the two types of ordering policies and the impact that each of them has on safety inventory. Answer: The continuous review inventory policy reviews the stock available in the inventory on a continuous basis and ensures that it does not replenish to reach the stockout situation. It helps in keeping a check on the stock available on a continuous basis. The other policy is periodic review which checks the inventory periodically and ensures that the only time required is replenishment lead time. 11- Consider two products with the same cost but different margins. Which product should have a higher level of product availability? Why? Answer: The product having high margin will have a higher level of product availability as the margin relates to the lead time as well as the low demand of the product. 12- Consider two products with the same margin carried by a retail store. Any leftover units of one product are worthless. Leftover units of the other product can be sold to outlet stores. Which product should have a higher level of availability? Why? Answer: The first product will have higher level of availability as the leftover units will add to the new inventory and continue to increase its availability. The other product will be sold out leaving less number of available products in the inventory. 13- A firm improves its forecast accuracy using better market intelligence. What impact will this have on supply chain inventories and profitability? Why? Answer: The market intelligence will predict the expected rise in the demand for a product. In case of rise, the enterprise will ensure continuous flow of product into the inventory for meeting the increase in the demand. Thus, reducing any mismanagement in terms of lack of product availability when the demand arises or extra units availability when the demand shrinks. This way the profitability is ensured and there is less loss. 14- How can postponement of product differentiation be used to improve supply chain profitability? Answer: Product differentiation is the customization, convenience and the recovery of cost through distinguishing the product from the others in the market. The postponement of these activities can improve the profitability of supply chain by bringing in the product from all sources and not focusing on one particular product. Thus, there are numerous sources available for the replenishment of the product of all types instead of focusing on one particular kind of product. 15- What modes of transportation are best suited for large, low-value shipments? Why? Answer: Transportation by sea is the best suited mode for large and low value shipments. Sea transport is low cost and can handle large shipments without problems. 16- Why is it important to account for congestion when pricing the use of transportation infrastructure? Answer: The congestion at the harbor delays the delivery of the product. In case the congestion takes weeks to clear, the delivery of stock can be simultaneously delayed for months as the transportation by sea takes longer time period. 17- Wal-mart designs its networks so that a DC supports several large retail stores. Explain how the company can use such a network to reduce transportation cost while replenishing inventories frequently. Answer: The retail stores near the company’s warehouse can be partnered to form a network through which the inventory is replenished frequently and with less transportation cost. The decreased distance between the warehouse of inventory and the suppliers decreases the transportation time and cost substantially. 18- What are some ways that a firm such as Wal-Mart benefits from good sourcing decisions? Answer: The good sourcing decisions relates to the sourcing of the product that is not core and costs higher when developed internally. The product that is bought for a higher price and can be developed internally at lower cost should not be outsourced. Thus, reducing the cost and ensuring high quality. 19- What factors leads Wal-Mart to own its trucks although many retailers outsource all their transportation? Answer: The increase in the demand for the product, higher charges upon outsourcing of transportation, increased lead up time and decrease in efficiency of the human resources leads Wal-Mart to the own the trucks for all its transportation purposes. 20- How can a supplier with a lower price end up costing the buyer more than a supplier with a higher price? Answer: The supplier with a lower price charges higher eventually due to the increase in the price of the incoming supply of product or due to the decrease in the order size from the buyer. Both factors affects the final price of the product. 21- In what ways can a retailer such as Nordstrom take advantage of revenue management opportunities? Answer: Nordstrom can take advantage of the revenue management opportunities by using the rate recovery and segmentation strategies. The rate recovery method argues that higher rates for discount should be applied to gain higher market share. Similarly, the segmentation plays a strong role in the revenue management which requires that the customers should be segmented according to their types, etc. to develop more focused strategies for generating more revenue. 22- What revenue management opportunities are available to a manufacturer? How can it take advantage of these opportunities? Answer: The manufacturer can benefit from the rate recovery, segmentation, usage of data for decision making and closing the gap between revenue management and customer loyalty. The manufacturer should benefit from these opportunities and develop a more loyal customer base for its product. 23- What revenue management opportunities are available to a trucking firm? How can it take advantage of these opportunities? Answer: The trucking firm can benefit from the rate recovery, segmentation, usage of data for decision making and closing the gap between revenue management and customer loyalty. The manufacturer should benefit from these opportunities and develop a more loyal customer base for its product. 24- What revenue management opportunities are available to the owner of a warehouse and how can it take advantage of them? Answer: The owner of a warehouse can benefit from the rate recovery, segmentation, usage of data for decision making and closing the gap between revenue management and customer loyalty. The manufacturer should benefit from these opportunities and develop a more loyal customer base for its product. 25- What processes within each macro process are best suited to being enabled by IT? What processes are least suited? Answer: The human resource management, revenue management, supply chain management and database management are the processes that are best suited to being IT enabled. The process of delegation of activities among staff is least suited. 26- What are the key advantages that best of breed software companies provide? Answer: The best of breed software companies provide extensive software development services for the development of software applications for the businesses. They provide company supported software applications that are customized and able to manage the key processes of a company with ease and effectiveness. 27- What are the key advantages that large software companies, such as the ERP players, provide? Answer: The Enterprise Resource Planning software companies provide software development services to the companies. They develop all the ERP software for the companies, manage and control them to ensure that they work properly and retrieves accurate data for decision making. The ERP companies however, develop integrated software that includes all the modules for all the processes that the company performs. 28- What types of industries would be most likely to choose a best of breed approach to their IT systems? What types be more likely to choose a single large integrated solution? Answer: The small and medium sized companies prefer to choose the best of breed approach to their IT system having small IT budgets. On the contrary, the multinationals or conglomerates will opt for single large integrated solution having large IT budgets. 29- What is the bullwhip effect and how does it relate to lack of coordination in a supply chain? Answer: The bullwhip effect relates with the ever changing demand of customer for a product that has a continuously large effect on the distribution channels of the supply chain. The customer demand is hardly perfectly stable causing large effects on the suppliers. In this regard, the lack of coordination in any supply chain can adversely impact the situation and worsen it. Thus, there should be efficient coordination in the supply chain to ensure adequate stock is available to meet the desired increase in demand. 30- What is the impact of lack of coordination on the performance of a supply chain? Answer: The lack of coordination can negatively impact the performance of a supply chain as in case of default, the supply chain can collapse. The balance between supply and demand of the product determines the price and it should be ensured that there is effective coordination among all the points in a supply chain. 31- In what way can improper incentives lead to a lack of coordination in a supply chain? What countermeasures can be used to offset this effect? Answer: The improper incentives can demotivate the employees. As a result, they will become ineffective and inefficient leading to lack of coordination in a supply chain. In order to offset this effect, the organization should ensure that the supply chain employees are well cared for and monitored to avoid any chances of such incident. 32- What problems result if each stage of a supply chain views its demand as the orders placed by the downstream stage? How should firms within a supply chain communicate to facilitate coordination? Answer: The individual provision of the product to meet the demand for the product can lead to confusion and conflict. Thus, the supply chain should be controlled by the single server where all the orders are entered and relative actions are taken by the firms to play their roles. Reference: Jacobson, Donald & Safian, Shelley. How to build a flexible workforce? (2009). Web 17 November 2011. Link: http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20090201laborpool/ Yang, Chang-Hu & Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou Univ. Collaborative Mechanism of manufacturing enterprise supply chain based on multi-agent. Machine Learning and Cybernetics (2007). Web 17 November 2011. Link: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4370140 Read More