need a response to 3 post

need a response to 3 post 

O F purchasing

Case Study:

 

 The Lear Seating Plant

Questions:

2. What are the risks associated with direct shipping? What contingency elements are required to overcome these risks?

From this scenario, the Lear Seating Plant ships 10-15 trucks worth of outbound materials to Chrysler per shift – with seven trucks rotating on this schedule. This large shipment requires careful planning and a strict delivery schedule. Fortunately, the plant has not been late for a shipment to the Chrysler plant in over three years, proving the reliability of the Lear Seating Plant. Direct shipment is a method that the company uses to ship its products from its plant to its consumer directly. This delivery scheme bypasses the concept of distribution channels by avoiding intermediaries. For the seller, it will reduce transportation and storage costs. For the buyer, it reduces delivery time and the price of the product. Though the company can save a lot of logistics and warehouse costs there are several risks associated.

· The Lear Seating Company reputation is always at stake as there is no quality guarantee for the products sent to the customer.

· Expanding liability risk: Selling directly to consumers introduces new exposures to the manufacturer that wholesalers or retailers may typically take responsibility for as part of third-party contractual agreements.

· Heightened cyber risk: A Direct shipping operation necessarily requires handling sensitive customer and financial data, making cyber-security a major concern and priority. A security breach can not only disrupt business but may also harm a manufacturer’s reputation, particularly if customer information such as credit card data is compromised.

· Supply chain complexity: Selling to consumers makes the supply chain more complex, with additional points of vulnerability where disruption could impact the entire business

Overcoming these risks is not a simple one-step task; instead, it requires strategic planning and sometimes implementing new operating procedures to be effective. Below are some things the Lear Seating Plant should consider addressing these risks:

· Develop a cross-functional team to identify potential challenges and vulnerabilities of direct distribution.

· Consider insurance implications, review risk controls in place, and adjust your coverage as needed.

· Establish a contract with third-party logistics firms to manage inventory and distribution and mitigate potential delivery challenges and risks.

· Use custom distribution Software to guide schedules, custom orders, and inventory.

 

5. What does it really take to become a lean manufacturer with direct shipping capabilities?

When the trailer pulls away from the dock doors, it’s over. You’ve done all that you can do to ship your customers the right product in the right quantity and have it delivered on time. It’s also your final opportunity to get it wrong, which is why manufacturing executives need to pay as much attention to creating a lean material flow in their picking, packing, and shipping areas as they do in the factory.

A lean distribution operation is an integral part of a pull-based value chain that begins with the customer order. Such procedures apply lean tools and techniques to simplify packaging, streamline material flow, reduce errors, eliminate extra handling, reduce floor-space requirements, and improve inventory management (Koenemann, 2008).

Setting up a lean distribution operation does not start with equipment. It is not solely on having new conveyors or the latest material handling automation to eliminate labor hours. New equipment and technology may be part of the final solution. Still, lean distribution starts by thinking about applying lean principles of eliminating waste, creating flow, and implementing pull-based processes to develop a value chain driven by customer demand.

 

Reference:

Koenemann, K. (2008, June 8). Lean Distribution: Shaping Up to Ship Out. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.industryweek.com/operations/continuous-improvement/article/21958304/lean-distribution-shaping-up-to-ship-out

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Case Study: The Lear Seating Plant

Question 2: What are the risks associated with direct shipping? What contingency elements are required to overcome these risks?

Direct shipping can lead to the potential for mishandling of material but also lead to potential transportation delays. Lear has an exceptional history but the fact that there is no finished product warehouse does not allow for them to build finish product to deal with the busiest times of the year and does not allow them to manage delivery schedules as efficient as it could be. There are obvious traffic patter and accident concerns. The naming of alternate routes should be well established, and a consistent delivery schedule should be well established and well in advance. There is a time consideration when dealing with a production facility. Any kind of delay in the production process will create more delays further downstream. I would want to build a buffer into the production/delivery sequence. The direct shipment method can also put massive pressure on quality assurance. If there is any quality issue you could lose an entire production line and you take the potential of losing complete delivery hours/days. In the end I would mitigate most of this with a warehousing operation for completed/ready to ship items. Organizing the out-ship area would help to organize total deliverables and avoid delays on the backend.

 

Question 3: Can direct shipping be achieved without collaboration with customers and/or suppliers? What does it take to make this happen?

Direct shipping to the customer could be pulled off with some potential of risk. Suppliers however need to understand the direct ship methodology. There is risk that if suppliers can perform the direct ship to the end customer that they could become a form of competition to the main line. Collaboration within the supply chain ensures there is a steady flow of material and a steady programming of end product to the consumer. The scheduling process should involve all stakeholders so that improvements can be made through the entire supply chain. When stakeholders are invested in the process there can be improved communications of needs and these needs can be met. In addition, there are way to help mitigate supply issues and the reassurance that problems will be handled.

 

Case: Supply Chain Management at Bose Corporation

Question 15: Why has Bose developed its supplier performance measurement system?

Bose has developed this system to establish consistency and to ensure it can mitigate issues as soon as they arise. The fact that they do not let their suppliers slip, allows them to maintain a good reliable source of supply. It helps to hold their suppliers accountable to the overall scope of their deliveries and their products. This is a best practice to ensure they maintain qualified, quality vendors. The endgame for Bose is meeting the consumers want for quality. If the product that is received is not to standards it is ultimately hard to put out a quality product.

Question 16: Do you think the performance measurement systems at Bose are computerized or manual? Why?

In my opinion this is most likely mainly computerized. This allows for speed and accuracy. Computerized systems allow for the freeing up of workforce to take on other tasks that computer may not be able to perform. There is the potential to have some human manual processes in this system as the eyes on performance measurements give a human interaction to validate any computer information. It may also help to fix computer modeling when it comes to specific qualities that Bose is looking for. Overall computers speed up processes and make for a more cost-effective end state. This will increase the profitability of the company but also improves items for consumers and helps suppliers to ensure they get the right items to Bose and on time.

CS purchasing

Case Study: The Lear Seating Plant

2. What are the risks associated with direct shipping? What contingency elements are required to overcome these risks?

The requirement in concern of delivery times as well as the condition of items delivered are two main risks of direct shipping. Finding the most accurate way to ship products to prevent any type of delay would be a preferable way of combating any chances of late deliveries. Also, when looking at manning of personnel, it is imperative that there are enough people that are able to work in order to fulfill the delivery requirements. This does not only include warehouse workers but also driver’s ad logisticians as well. When in concern of the condition of deliverables, ensuring that the correct packaging is used as well as employees trained on how to handle them is the best means of ensuring that packages arrive safely to their final destination.

4. An important consideration that allowed Lear to succeed was proximity to its customers and suppliers. Should suppliers to Lear consider co-locating closer to its automotive customers and suppliers as well? Why or why not?

Relocating to their suppliers would reduce costs greatly in regard to the shipment of any parts of materials. There will also be an increase in a professional rapport that can allow for more understanding and aggreeance in areas such as the time that payments are made, how any future business plans are to be conducted and any information pertaining to future profits. The close proximity also increases opportunity for helpful customer responses in to regards to not only Lear but also the suppliers. Any promising information that can be given from the customer’s point of view can allow for future changes to operations that can not only benefit the customers but also Lear and the suppliers as well.

Supply Chain Management at Bose Corporation

1. Discuss how the strategy development process might work at a company like Bose.

Strategic development can allow a company like Bose to better enable any future accomplishments in regard to goals and objectives identified as part of their operations in respect to the supply chain management process. By utilizing strategy development, Bose has the ability to provide additional opportunities to be able to garner the benefits of utilizing the shipping of merchandise from overseas areas where the difference in prices are substantially cheaper. Add in the opportunity from the strategy development process in respect to the sourcing of supply, Bose can look at a diverse amount of suppliers who has accessibility to a plethora of cargo terminals in their company.

15. Why has Bose developed its supplier performance measurement system?

By utilizing Bose’s supplier performance system, they now have a means to measure their suppliers efficiency in regard to the areas of on-time deliveries, customer service, cycle times, and overall quality of work. The ability to observe these areas allows for future opportunities for continued process improvement, which by definition according to tallyfy.com is, “is the act of implementing improvements to a product, service or process.” (2020) When there is a noticeable drop in efficiency from one of Bose’s suppliers, the supplier performance measurement system will aid the company in determining a possible root cause. It may just be a bad period based off of personnel issues where there was a possible high rate of employee turnover or it can be ineffective practices and procedures. As a supplier if you know that you are being evaluated in this manner then there may be more of a reason to ensure that operations are ran a smooth and as effectively as possible.

 

Reference

Continuous Process Improvement (CPI): Definition and techniques. (2020, February 26). Tallyfy. 

https://tallyfy.com/continuous-process-improvement/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Caleb