Managing Business Operations - Supply Chain - Essay Example

Managing Business Operations – Supply Chain a) The case deals with Mega Logistics Holdings (MLH) which is one of the top five logistics companies inMalaysia. The company mainly operates for freight management all over the world through its 10 offices spread over the nation. It transports goods along all the three modes such as air, ocean and land transportation. The major activities performed by them in the business include managing logistics, warehouse department, distribution channel, and brokerage division. (Microsoft Great Plains Enhances Supply Chain Visibility for Mega Logistic Holdings. 2005). In order to meet its customers’ demand by providing quality services they decided to introduce IT in their business operations. Later on they ended up with problems as there was no integration between the systems of different units. Every individual department maintained its own account of activities properly but had no knowledge of what is happening in other departments. The lack of integration between different departments often created problems for the company. Thus, managing and integrating the affairs of all the units and departments became a tough task for a single person. Most often problems were detected after its occurrence. b) There are many processes involved in their business, beginning from order for freight to dispatch of the freight at the desired destination. The customer here is the company who places the order for transportation. The first process is the receipt of order from the client. Based upon the order, the company locates and sources the goods. The next process is packaging of the sourced goods. Packaging is the process that requires intensive care. Goods may be breakable, or of exploding or evaporating nature etc. Each type of goods must be appropriately packaged so that no loss occurs to the customer due to destruction of goods. Dispatch of defective goods also affects the credibility of the company. The goods are packed and insured by MLH to secure the goods from loss in transit. The goods are then dispatched and delivered to the appropriate receiver who acknowledges the receipt in the invoice. The invoice is then presented to the client for the payment. c) Impact of problems in the materials management on the case: Materials management includes managing the goods that are to be transferred from the supplier to the actual receiver. Managing the goods properly becomes very crucial for MLH to maintain its customer base. Goods are needed to be protected from loss due to theft, fire, leakage and breakage. So, proper insurance and packaging have to be done by the company with utmost care. Warehousing is another activity in materials management. In certain cases, after the loading of goods these have to be dispatched first to a location where it is further transported through another mode. In such cases, proper warehousing of the goods after the first dispatch becomes imperative. This involves an additional cost of warehousing. d) In the present issue of materials management the first activity is the packaging, which must be done in accordance with the nature of the goods. The cost involved in the packaging must be properly communicated to the next unit which deals with the insurance and ware-housing activities. The warehousing unit must have full knowledge of the type of goods and the number of packages which is possible only through proper information from the packaging unit. An account of the quantity of the goods has to be prepared at the time of loading so that it can be used during the dispatch for examination of the goods. 2. a) MLH are aware of the need of providing quality services to customers in order to survive in the industry. Here the company focused on improving quality of its services by providing on time delivery of goods. For this purpose, the company has attempted to develop IT systems and this resulted in-to the formation of various systems for different business units. So, finally, the control of these systems became difficult due to lack of integration and the company could not prevent the problems from occurring. It leads to reduction in the quality of services of MLH. b) The company operates from 10 offices nation wide and is capable of shipping goods anywhere in the world. So the company can increase profitability by improving the quality of services. Proper integration between various business systems of MLH will provide up to date business information to its management. So the management can now coordinate all the activities of MLH such as air freight services, ocean services and customs brokerage properly in a seamless manner. This will ensure delivery of shipment goods without damage and to the exact location in time. Thus the company can improve the level of customer satisfaction which will lead to increase in the volume of shipments and there by profit. Fast Response to customer order will help to increase the quality of services. In order to increase response speed to the customer the company has to reduce lead time in its services. The statistical tools such as simulation and queuing can be used to reduce lead time in its services. So the customer need not wait for long time to get company’s services. This will improve the quality of services and in turn will increase the profitability of the company. c) In this case Flow Process Chart technique can be used to manage the quality of services. Flow Process Charts define all the process occurred in MLH’s services. No process needs to complete this service other than defined by Flow Process Chart. By using Flow Process Chart, the management can estimate the required time for each process in order to maintain the quality of services. Fig: Flow Process Chart for Shipments of goods Here, when the customer comes with orders, the company can adopt the rule of first come first serve in order to provide services. After receiving the goods, packing section has to pack it promptly and forward to transportation department. From transportation department it will be transported to the destination by using air, ocean or land transportation modes. After reaching the destination, the goods are checked by the employees from the office of MLH at that location and subsequently dispatched to the end customer. All the processes are recorded in the system at the same time. So management can access the relevant information at the same time. d) In order to achieve total quality environment, the company has to identify its potential customers. After identifying the potential customers, the company has to improve its performance in order to maintain the level of customer satisfaction. Doing the right job at the right time may help to speed up the process i.e., conduct the inspection after completing each process and make necessary changes required. This will help to avoid the necessity for re-process due to errors after completing the whole processes. Thus it can save time and money which results reduction in expenditure required and can facilitate timely delivery of goods. The company needs to conduct all the processes in a systematic manner and focus on customer-driven functions. Works Cited Microsoft Great Plains Enhances Supply Chain Visibility for Mega Logistic Holdings. Malaysia, Microsoft Business. 18 Jul. 2005. 10 Sep. 2007 . Read More