Supply Chain Management Effectiveness, Assessment Example

I have worked in the supply chain management department at a manufacturing facility and I would consider this supply chain effective and efficient, but only to a certain degree. I say this because there are some issues with the way the proprietary software is set up that could be tweaked to reduce such problems as repetitiveness and the inability to navigate in the most efficient way through the system. This often caused delays in order processing time and it sometimes resulted in having to fly in materials and parts instead of having them arrive by sea or truck, and this increased operating costs. I believe the most important principles relating to what Baltzan and Phillips (2010) state, regarding decreasing operating costs, making improvements with asset productivity, and making order cycle time more efficient, have to do with operating costs and cycle time, with this particular company. As mentioned, these were the main issues that arose with the supply chain in terms of the tools used to management goods and materials. Of lesser importance, but still important, would be that which pertains to improved asset productivity. This is because this was not so much an issue with the company I worked for. Assets were state-of-the-art and those assets that were goods to be sold were of high quality, as per the company’s quality assurance policy.

These are my opinions of the manufacturing company’s supply chain department and I would not change my opinion if I had worked in a different industry, because I believe that managing a supply chain in any industry could benefit from improving the process, particularly as it relates to ensuring that a supply chain is sustainable into the future, which is required in today’s global marketplace (Guthrie, 2012) if a company plans on remaining successful.

References

Baltzan, P., & Phhillips, A. (2010). M: Information Systems (1st ed.). McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Guthrie, D. (2012, March 9). Building Sustainable and Ethical Supply Chains. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougguthrie/2012/03/09/building-sustainable-and-ethical-supply-chains/