Supply Chain Business - Australian Manufacturing Sector Play - Assignment Example

Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Class Name: Date assignment is due: Supply chain business report Executive Summary Australian manufacturing sector play a key role in the country’s general manufacturing industry Supply Chain. Its role is primarily supply chain design, tooling, unconventional manufacturing technology and equipment to home consumers and overseas significant customer, for instance, the automotive, appliance, and mining (Productivity Commission 45). The nation is thriving on a network of over four hundred and eighty biotechnology business. Among these, fifty per cent are involved in therapeutics, 15 per cent in agricultural biotechnology and the remaining 12 per cent are specialised in diagnostics. On the other hand, the Australian population reserves creative skilled work force that drives their industrialisation and economic actives. The expertise of the country that has won its popularity in arts, films, and TV have been outstanding. The Government of Australia legislation and policy are geared to boost the degree of investment in the country through; Taxation, Environmental regulation, Infrastructure, International financial markets, Competition, and Consumer laws. Process design, in this paper, includes selecting the appropriate technology, sizing the process over time, determining the role of inventory in the process, and locating the process. An essential competitive advantage of any company will be its ability to offer its customers with an after sale service following the purchase of any of their products. This calls for the availability of spare parts, improvement of earlier products sold, packaging, and technical services to see to it that he product work effectively. This paper looks at Australia investment attractiveness with regard to supply chain management, and gives practical examples on the potential of Australia being an investment market. Further, practical information regarding the foreign investors services with respect to cost, Delivery reliability (Deliver it When Promised), Delivery Speed (make the product or Deliver the service quickly), Coping with Changes in Demand(Change Its Volume), Flexibility, and new-Product introduction Speed to Chang a product which are the competitive perspectives. Introduction Australian manufacturing sector play a key role in the country’s general manufacturing industry Supply Chain. Its role is first supply chain design, tooling, unconventional manufacturing technology, and equipment to home consumers and overseas significant customer, for instance, the automotive, appliance, and mining (Productivity Commission 45). The manufacturing industry features the fields: Precision engineering, Machine tool manufacture, and cutting tool manufacture, Die/mould manufacturing, Robotics and other automated, equipment for manufacture, General engineering, and Design for manufacture (Department of Finance and Administration 12). Australia features in prominence worldwide because of the high standards of innovation. The nation’s infrastructure, human resource, and manufacturing expertise are reputable accruing from the high levels of innovation associated with the country. Australia is the land that harbours the diversity of this world in various sectors, from tourism, biotechnology companies, and efficient infrastructure. Australia Attractiveness The nation is thriving on a network of over four hundred and eighty biotechnology business. Among these, fifty per cent are involved in therapeutics, 15 per cent in agricultural biotechnology and the remaining 12 per cent are specialised in diagnostics. In the year 2008, the bioIndustry Review conveyed that 400 associations had been declared constituted by the Australian life science business in the last one year (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, 34). Of which: The country is well endowed with medical device industry, a solid position in the bioindustry putting the nation internationally as the best in terms of expertise in the sector of stem research. The Australian population reserves creative skilled work force that drives their industrialisation and economic actives. The expertise of the country that has won its popularity in arts, films, and TV have been outstanding. Publishing media industries and sporting activities and recreations are all established in the country (Productivity Commission 56). Further, the country has produced the best theatres, celebrities, and unending accolades for their medium and tasks. In addition, the country is populated with highly skilled craft people and entrepreneurs who handle their tasks in each aspect of the arts and entertainment segments (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development 23). Today, the Government of Australia has put in place three significant strategic policies in an effort to encourage investments, which are: i) The foreign investment endorsement progression in Australia is regulated under the foreign Acquisition Takeover Act 1975 and appended by national’s government policy. The country’s Treasurer and Foreign Investment Review Panel, an advice-giving committee within the Australian Government Ministry of Treasury, conducts such process (Department of Finance and Administration 5). ii) The Australian foreign investment endorsement by the Government will put into consideration the facilitation of investment incentives as stipulated in the Strategic Investment Co-ordination (SIC) program. The provision is designed for Australian investment and projects that would otherwise be in the offshore locations, and be endowed with important net financial and employment opportunities benefits. iii) The Strategic Investment Co-ordination (SIC) program believes in the worldwide mobility of foreign direct investment and the competitive niche for the access of the limited obtainable resources. The Government of Australia legislation and policy are geared to boost the degree of investment in the country through; a) Taxation- the Government has gotten into agreement with a number of trading nations to avoid taxation, offer tax holiday to investors from other countries, and avoid double taxation of profits and revenue. Further, the tax incentives have reduced the country’s taxing right on some particular ranges of revenues gotten by a resident of the foreign country, or the other way round (Department of Finance and Administration 11). b) Environmental regulation – there are transparent regulation on system and industry improvement, protection of flora and fauna, pollutions, greenhouse gases and toxic waste actions with dangerous substances. The institution of policies, structural and regulation arrangements are set to make sure that the tri-marriage between the Australian state, the investors, and the environmental analysis programs are mutually interacted to enhance environmental conservation. c) Infrastructure – even though chiefly a stage government obligation, the Australian Government possibly will facilitate in cases that the projects have credit to upkeep common user infrastructure. d) International financial markets – the nation’s regulatory framework maintains pace with the commercial market developments, putting into consideration the international currency, reduction or elimination of foreign exchange controls and one of the greatest effective knowledgeable property rights regime internationally (Department of Finance and Administration 7). e) Competition and Consumer laws: the trade undertakings in Australia, as per the Trade Practices 1974 states of the boundaries not to exceed or prohibit company practices that might bring down the level of competition in international trade and commerce, as well as Australia local traders. This paper takes a look at Australia investment attractiveness by giving practical examples on the potential of Australia being an investment market. Further, practical information regarding the foreign investors services with respect to cost, Delivery reliability (Deliver it When Promised), Delivery Speed (make the product or Deliver the service quickly), Coping with Changes in Demand(Change Its Volume), Flexibility, and new-Product introduction Speed to Chang a product which are the competitive perspectives. Competitive dimensions Cost of price; the stiff competition in such industries experiences high rates of exits from the market, as well as high risks of suffering losses. The Australian BAE Systems has offered its purchasing supply chain management services contract with Xchaging, which is an international processor. As a result, most companies have opted to produce their commodities in the lowest costs possible and subsequently establish a higher price for the product in the market. The contract was initially initiated in the year 2006 and has currently been taken for three more years up to 2013. Xchaging will have to control and organise the 200 million Australian Dollars spent during the operating period of the BAE System contract in Australia (Thomson Reuters Bae Systems Australia Extends Contract with Xchanging 22). With an objective to effectively offer the product in a fair price, cost saving was a major endeavour originally core for a guaranteed continuation an all-inclusive business solution which will result in revolutionaries in the indirect product and services procurement spent in Australia. Further, increasing concentration, on delivering vis-à-vis local demands whilst consecutively, engineering, efficient supply chain solutions, across the business. Goods and services offered on the cost of production, rather than quality imply of a perfectly competitive market where most consumers cannot differentiate between the same commodities, rather, in their mind only. The Australian market is mostly very large, and most business is enticed by the potential of substantial income that is accrued form large-scale production of commodities (Thomson Reuters Bae Systems Australia Extends Contract with Xchanging 2011). Quality; most companies do not seek to compete on basis of price through cost minimization but rather based on quality. Quality, sought by most customers, as always reflected in the quest for warranties and guarantees by most shoppers, is essential for any business to strive in a highly competitive market. The level of performance, accompanying product features, reliability and appearance have always been attached to quality demand. According to the Business Council of Australia (22), the relevant features of a commodity or service that relate to high quality are the design quality and process quality. The prior characteristic refers to the set of features a commodity, and the disparity in features of the same class of goods. As expected by many customers high quality products have more synchronised features that attach them with the high cost prices. However, overdesigned products with irrelevant features in their design will be considered as too prohibitively expensive. Delivery Speed; Most companies today adapt to a competitive trend to deliver their services and products on time, thus meeting customer utility maximisation, and winning their loyalty. When the right quality of products is delivered on time, as opposed to a competitor, the business is guaranteed of high performance. The Australian manufacturing Industry has evolved on subjection to much analysis in the recent times, more particularly in relation to rate protection for the market in holistic manner within particular sectors of the industry. All have been initiated to achieve better and efficient productivity in relation to speed of delivery. Presently the manufacturing industry has a GDP of over A $70 billion. According to Austrade, your Competitive Edge 2009, (Speed has also been related in the growth rate of the Australian economy as a whole. Since the year 2004 to date the Australian economy, as compared to USA (2.7), UK (2.7), Japan (1.1), and France (2.2), showed a lead in growth rate of the GDP of 3.5 with positive increase in value as indicated in table 2. The contribution from each industry lead to this tremendous growth i.e. Manufacturing 10.7%, Construction 7.7%, Mining 8.3%, Finance and Insurance 8.1%, property and business services 13.1%, were the large contributors to the GDP of the country. This are the most active industries in Australia, as opposed to communication, transport, wholesale, utilities, health and communication which scored less than five in their contribution to the GDP. As such, Australia showed a high mark in resilience to the economic recessions experienced in the year 2008, for investors, this is the best country to invest in. the Australian economy scored 6.78 marks among the 55 most developed countries. In which the Gross Product is the amount of the products and services manufactured in minus the expenses incurred of the cost of products and services utilised in the manufacturing process and prior allowance that had been paid for depreciation. The production in the country accounts for the biggest with whole trade adding up to A $50 billion. Both Property and business services account for over A $ 42 billion, retail commerce amounted to A$36 billion, and finance and insurance as well amounted to over A$34 billion. As indicated in the appendices, chart 1, the drop in the dominance of the production industry in the recent past. This was due to an extent to the inefficiency in the delivery of products and services on time. In 2007, it was over twenty five per cent (25%) of the country’s GDP however, by 2008, its constituency in the GDP amounted to slightly above 14%, as depicted in chart 2. Delivery reliability; The Australian culture is based, majorly, on the understanding of loyalty and Christian virtues, once a company has showed its reliability in delivering its products, in the same line, it has indeed created immense opportunities for the company to fully operate because of the high demand for the product. This attractive feature of the service provider and the consumer behaviour routs from the concept of delivering a product at the time promised or offering a service at a time when exactly need is a competitive advantage for any company that is focused towards consistently meeting this condition. This dimensional competitive advantage is taken up by most company with the capacity to supply their services or products before due date of the intended supply (Business Council of Australia 34). Technical liaison and support; Therefore, with the above demands of a competitive market, the service provider or product provider is expected to deliver technical assistance, in the machinery assembly supply, for an effective monitoring of the product and the development of such commodities. Specifically, at the early stages of design and manufacturing of any product which has been offered to the market the first time. The Australian market has advanced towards effectively building a high technical liaison and support services for their customers. Meeting a launch date; According to the Australian market has proved to be on commencement of a large production of a commodity, and development of a project. Meeting the launch date is essential to any business that is geared towards competing on reliability, speed and quality in the market, with other competitors who have such complex capacities to offer the same service. As such, the production might be undertaken simultaneously with the continuous development work is still in progress. Therefore, the efficiency in managing the tasks from the capacity location and the firm while progressing in the normal business calls for effective ability to meet the launch dates of the project. Conclusion We focus on integrating operations and supply chain strategy with a firm’s operations capabilities. This involves decisions that relate to the design of the processes and infrastructure needed to support these processes. Process design includes selecting the appropriate technology, sizing the process over time, determining the role of inventory in the process, and locating the process. The infrastructure decisions involve the logic associated with the planning and control systems, quality assurance and control approaches, work payment structure, and organisation of system quality assurance and control approaches, work payment structure and organisation of operations and supply chain functions. A firm operations capabilities can be viewed as portfolio best suited to adapt to the changing product and or service needs of a firm’s customers (Austrade 2011). An essential competitive advantage of any company will be its ability to offer its customers with an after sale service following the purchase of any of their products. In essence, this calls for the availability of spare parts, improvement of earlier products sold, packaging, and technical services to see to it that he product work effectively. However, in this undertaking, competing in speed is essential as a strategy to the customer needs for quality service (Austrade 2011). Recommendation After the extensive analysis and findings on the potential of Australia being a home for investors I would like to fully certify that the country is well endowed with the capacity and capability of improving their manufacturing sector with regard to the supply chain management’s procedures. On conclusion, with a stable government, incentives and full support encouraging investors it is worthwhile noting that hesitating to take up an opportunity in the country as an investor will be a wrong decision. Works Cited Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. Economic Survey of Australia, Paris. 5 May. 2006. < http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/21/37178619.pdf> Department of Finance and Administration. Commonwealth Policy Principles for the Use of Private Financing, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. 2002. Print Business Council of Australia. Infrastructure Action Plan for Future Prosperity, Australia: Melbourne. , 2005. Print Productivity Commission. Review of National Competition Policy Reforms. Australia Canberra. 2005.print Austrade. Australian Government Advanced Manufacturing overview. . Thomson Reuters. Bae Systems Australia Extends Contract With Xchanging. Press Release, 2011. Print APPENDICES Table 1: The Alliances Company Alliances Percentage/ No. of organisations International Organisations 70% North American Organisations 101 European organisations 100 Asian organisations 57 Table 2: developed country Real GDP growth Year GDP Australia USA UK Japan France 2004 A$ 3.9 billion 3.6 2.8 2.7 2.5 2005 A$ 2.8 billion 2.9 2.1 1.9 1.9 2006 A$ 2.7 billion 2.8 2.8 2.4 2.2 2007 A$ 4.2 billion 2.0 3.0 2.1 2.2 2008 A$ 2.5 billion 1.4 0.8 0.5 0.8 2009 A$ 2.21 billion -0.7 -1.3 -0.2 -0.5 Average A$ 3.5 billion 2.7 2.7 1.1 2.2 Chart 1 Read More