1. What recommendations would you make to John Wolf with respect to structuring the supplier relationship process for the Wolf Motors dealership network?
First, I would recommend that WM engages in centralized buying for as many products as possible. By purchasing larger quantities and varieties of goods from fewer sources, WM can increase its purchasing power. This will allow the company to negotiate lower parts and materials costs with its supplier, which it can then pass along to its customers in the form of lower prices.
Second, I would recommend that WM utilize electronic data interchange (EDI) technology to ease communication efforts between its individual dealerships and its various suppliers. This will allow the company to exchange
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information freely internally, as well as externally, regardless of the hardware or software used by the dealerships or the suppliers. The use of this technology will also allow for more accurate tracking of inventory levels among these entities, which will reduce the inventory pressures placed on WM. A more accurate account of each dealerships inventory will provide WM with two methods of obtaining the necessary parts and materials: (1) with more time, it can order the goods directly from the supplier, or (2) with less time, it can share goods between dealerships to ensure timely customer service. 2.
How might purchasing policies and procedures differ as the dealerships purchase different types of service parts and materials (for example, lubricants versus genuine GM parts)?
As stated above, I recommend that WM reduce the number of suppliers and engage in centralized buying for as many products as possible. By limiting its number of suppliers, WM will be able to standardize more of its purchasing policies and procedures across the various dealerships and among its vendors. Also, by reducing the number of suppliers involved, WM will be able to focus more on souring products from vendors that meet the company’s price, quality and delivery standards, which will help ensure better after-sale customer service and satisfaction.
However, it is important to note that even with fewer vendors, WM’s purchasing policies and procedures will differ based on the size and sophistication of the supplier involved in the transaction. For larger suppliers like GM, WM will want to rely more heavily on detailed contracts that clearly stipulate the expectations of the company and the implications that will result from unfulfilled expectations. For smaller suppliers, the company will want to soften the dialog used in its contracts to avoid scaring potential vendors away. By using less threatening language, the company will be able to build trust with these smaller vendors and ensure their future cooperation in the timely delivery of quality
goods. 3. How can supply chain design and integration help John Wolf reduce investment and space requirements while maintaining adequate service levels? Through effective supply chain design, WM will be able to reduce the purchase and storage of extraneous parts and materials across its dealerships. This will allow the company to decrease the amount of physical space and financial investment needed to operate each location, cutting costs across the organization. In addition, by limiting its pool of suppliers and creating a more efficient and organized method of communication, the company will be able to more easily and accurately track its inventories. This will allow WM to share parts and materials between dealerships if necessary, and order additional goods from suppliers when inventories get low. By streamlining and integrating the supply chains of each dealership, WM will be able to reduce its costs (both physical and financial) and still provide the after-sale customer service and satisfaction its patrons have come to expect.
Any time the company is looking into software project, there are areas associated with risk such as cost, time and relationship with suppliers. However, for Harley-Davidson, “collocation of suppliers with production facilities and their integration into company’s development process was the essential part of long-term relationship development”. Through a continued focus on collaboration and strong supplier relationships, the company could position itself to achieve strategic objectives and deliver cost and quality improvement over the long-term. Since, at that time company had no centralized system in place to handle relationship with suppliers and consequently, most of company’s time was spent on supplier management activities. For example, reviewing inventory, expediting and data entry. Furthermore, each supplier had different information systems for “Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO), Original Equipment (OE), Parts and Accessories (P&A), and General Merchandising (GM) purchasing activities”. The systems, already provided by supplier, had to be further modified to meet individual need at each location, such as “the OE system at Harley-Davidson’s York, Pennsylvania site was different from the OE system in Kansas City”. However, due to long-standing tradition of gradual change implementation and focus on quality, quick transitions were unwelcome and did not come easy for the company. The size of the project determined how much risk was involved in terms of cost, time, and supplier relationships. The idea of switching to global purchasing system was seen as a threat not only in supplies and production flow interruption, but also in damaged dealer/customer relationships and lost sales. Furthermore, failure of the sy...
Despite the adumbrated achievement, the supply chain management strategies employed by Walmart have experienced some challenges. The first one is the evolution of the standards of the technologies that are used globally. These are always becoming advanced, and the company has to keep up with them to be able to stay ahead of the pack.
Suppliers must maintain good relations with the companies in the industry. This is low because there are multiyear service contracts and the delivery industry uses items such as vehicles, employee benefits, general goods and airline contracts associated with overhead of running business, but all contracts are rewarded through an RFP process. There are enough players in the market and had high fixed cost and thus have substantial buying power.
Offering consumers access to an extensive inventory online along with warranties, service, financing, appraisals, and add the consumer’s ability to sell the car to the dealership is CarMax’s brand. CarMax needs to continue to leverage their competitive strengths while making sure they offer the best-priced cars to the very competitive used car buying consumer. While it may be attractive to CarMax to enter new car market, they risk losing the ability to conduct their business model as manufacturers have various rules and contract requirements to carry the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Honda, or Toyota product lines. With this, they risk losing their brand recognition and identity with their consumers. Additionally, costs associated with buying an existing dealership with inventory and various licensing and franchising fees have the potential to drive up costs and therefore threaten their ability to price
John Willis, due to the failure to arrive on time for shifts, as well as taking excessive break time, we have decided that you may be a better fit elsewhere, and are terminated, effective immediately.
A company’s relationship with key suppliers is a vital part of any company’s success. A good supplier relation means better price, meeting company standards and a better service level. That 's why when Honda started working with Modine, Honda made sure that its relationship with Modine was
It is simple to see logistic and supply chain networks in action such as warehouses storing, shipment transporting products and customers consuming those products and services. This is determined by how the management of the company plans its upcoming activities and transforms their inputs into outputs efficiently to the global market. Therefore, this is no exception for a high-end automotive component, industrial products and automotive manufacturer like BOSCH, Canada. This report will outline the supply chain flow and purchase in BOSCH Canada. However, there are several challenges such as failing to manage inventory well and the inaccuracy of demand forecast faced by the company. Therefore, several recommendations are discussed within this report in order to expand the business widely.
Supply chain management has been defined as that process that involves the management of information, materials, and all the finances that are handled within and across the entire supply chain process (Christopher, 2016). The management is usually done through out the entire supply chain management from that moment when the suppliers are involved through all the manufacturing activities, different distribution activities, and the way that the products are served to the final product consumer (Turban, et al., 2002). The process also includes all the activities that different organizations offers to their customers as after sale services for purposes perfecting their services and products towards their highly valued customers (Christopher,
John Baker was a chief engineer of the Carribean Bauxite company of Barracanian, who was being promoted to Keso Mining Corporation near Wininipeg, a Canadian enterprise. His final tasks is the assessment interview with the successor, Matthew Rennals the able young Baracanian. Baker is an English expatriate, was 45 years old and had served for 23 years with continental Ore in East Asia several African countries, Europe and for the last 2 years, the west Indies. It was pointed out to Baker that not only was Rennalds one of the brightest Baracanian prospects on the staff as at London University he had taken first class honours in the BSC engineering degree but he was also the son of the minister of finance and economic planning ha aslso had no
Depending on the availability of the data the companies can customize the product and service. They can have the Dealer interactions with the firm through company sites. Through different interactions the development of products can be done.
...M, over the past few years, has proven itself as a major staple in the running of a business. There is a high demand for the skills that organize a company according to function and communication. The job skill sets are encompassing of many different disciplines and has one major goal: To streamline an organizations model in order to bring better and more effective service and goods to the consumer. The main purpose of a company's existence is initially to make a profit, but eventually, that goal transforms into maximization of profit, and it is here, that supply chain management becomes indispensable for a company, as we have seen with the example of Hewlett Packard. It requires experience know-how in order to treat many of the real world problems in an increasingly shrinking world and to make it look-like it was smooth and flawless in the eyes of the customer.
As Seattle based company Billings Equipment Inc. pushes on to produce a new product line, the organization is instructing supply management employees to reduce costs and cycle times of suppliers, to adhere to the Target Cost objectives. The hasty production timeline restraints led to early missed cost reduction opportunities, unethical reneging on supplier price contracts in order to reduce costs, and jeopardizing Billings Equipment’s historically impeccable reputation for ethical treatment of suppliers. This product line’s aggressive timeline to market; leading to early missed opportunities to reduce costs, followed by forceful demand to suppliers for a ten percent price reduction, and followed by an additional five percent price reduction
Each office has their own supply management function that increases Group’s purchasing, manufacturing, packaging and delivering costs. Scotts Europe has hundreds of suppliers, numerous uncoordinated contacts, even several contacts with the same supplier, but with the different pricing.
This chapter deals with literature review on the study variables in a buyer-supplier relationship. And focus on how trust, adaptation, commitment, communication and cooperation been selected as variables that will affect buyer’s satisfaction level.
(2014) deduced that procurement performance can be assessed by focusing ondelivery,flexibility, quality, cost and technology. Optimal performance attainment is dependent onhow current suppliers`relationships aremanaged so asto ensure constant availability of needed quality supplies at the organization. This will ensure that sourced materials are indeed procured at the right costand atthe right time. Procurement performancestrives toenable improvements in the procurement process at the organizationso as to improve on qualitydelivery of firm products and servicesatleast possible time and