Blog

Please Follow directions or I will dispute: Please answer original forum with a minimum of 250 words each and respond to both students separately with a minimum of 100 words each with references

• page 1 Original Forum with References
• page 2 Manuel response with references
• page 3 Robert response with references

Original Forum

• Part I. To what extent do you believe a supply chain can be redesigned to compensate for poor product design or poor product quality?
• Part II. End your initial response with a follow-up question for your classmates to address in further the discussion.

Student Response

Manuel

Supply chains can be redesigned to compensate for poor product design and poor product quality only to a certain extent. An effective redesign will look at every step of the operation and ask the tough questions needed to spark change and innovation. The first area I would consider when driving a redesign is establishing effective modeling and having a clear and accurate understanding of the costs and metrics (shipping costs, customs hold times, shipping lead times, available transportation options, etc.) associated with manufacturing and/or sourcing your products from both domestic and overseas companies.  Another aspect I believe is overlooked is communication providing ample time to allow for restructuring and allowing time to analyze what is driving decisions that are being made.

From what I gathered from (Cecere,2014) investments need to be made where they make sense. Examples include improving on design and quality weaknesses, asking your employees the “tough questions” to get down to the root cause of your issues and by controlling and ensuring the quality is being measured all the way from raw materials down to the finished goods. Improving on design and quality must be a group effort with buy in from all levels of the organization. Change that is implemented by be monitored and measured, if needed, reassessment and adjustments must be applied. We should never stop asking “Why” in terms of every aspect of our supply chain, many small changes can yield huge results.

If you were hired as a new supply chain manager and you were tasked with making improvements on your company’s supply chain process, which area/s would you focus on first and why?

Manny

Reference

Cecere, L. (2014, June 23). Redesign to Improve Value: A Case Study of a Supply Chain Leader – Supply Chain 24/7. Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://www.supplychain247.com/article/redesign_to_improve_value_a_case_study_of_a_supply_chain_leader/solvoyo

Robert

Hello class/professor,

One of the toughest decisions made by a supply chain is to redesign the way it conducts business. When a supply chain redesigns it tens to loose or differentiate  from the vision/mission established by the company. Such project can be a big constraint physically and financially. However, an article by Simon Bragg, Richard stone and Julian Geersdaele, talks about the seven reasons a supply chain should consider taking on a redesigning project.

1. When a supply chain has objectives rather strategies, simply meaning a supply chain is focused more on the objectives rather than developing a strategy on how to get there.  As we learned in last week’s forum, supply chains should use the metric system that measures key performance to implement a better to plan to reduce  losses and increase production and efficiency.
2. The second one is figuring out why do you do things this way? A simple question like this can help a supply chain take a step back and re-evaluate the surrounding and networks used in the process and see if it’s still current with today’s demand.
3. Thirdly, is the number of products and customer are growing faster than you budget. When examining the finances, Supply Chains should be a monetary balance between consumers and production.
4. Consolidation and collaboration is coming. In today’s global emergence, its ok to partner with other companies and create a unified solution to minimize spending and leveraging growth.
5. Experiencing major service failure. Understanding failed system and cut losses early. Redesigning can help overcome and improve such challenge.
6. Fear is in the air, when a company fears risk a company should step back and mitigate risk to expand foot print and improve rewards.
7. Renew third-party logistics- evaluate third party partnership and examine the relative value to such partner, or consider partnering up with another company.

I feel in the upcoming years all supply chains will face some type of adversity; what do you think will impact supply chains the most?

References:

Bragg, S. Stone, R. Geersdaele. (2011) Supply Chain: Seven Signs Your Supply Chain Needs a Redesign. Retrieved from the World Wide Web.

https://www.supplychainquarterly.com/articles/546-seven-signs-your-supply-chain-needs-a-redesign