Peerless Products Inc. Independent Study

1. Assume you are the CEO of Peerless Products and that you are aware of your company’s lack of overall end-to-end such chain capability. What are some of the high-level, adverse impacts on your business that may occur?

You may see decrease in margins from expedited shipping costs increased. Slow to market growth, loss of market shares, possible rise in the cost-of-goods sold, lower cost-of-goods sold, below normal performance targets, increased cycle times, you may see a rise in complaints from major customers for poor service, and customer service, response times and poor supplier performance. Not to mention changes in local, national and international commodity prices for goods needed in the manufacturing process, such as energy, fuel, and transportation costs etc.

2. What steps would you recommend be taken to help avoid the type of adverse impacts identified above?

Understanding the needed supply chain capabilities before one sets out to operate in a global market place is a good idea, before trying to find and fill the holes in the dike are needed. Implementing a strategic plan that can be rapidly duplicated throughout the organization, strengthen supplier relationships, set quality expectations for suppliers by using a supplier performance score card to measure compliance. Optimize logistics and manufacturing capabilities, synchronize business units using information technology, and in order to drive organizational efficiencies create a culture of action. Set goals for a sourcing strategy. This means internal, or possibly external, personnel who can build new capabilities seamlessly. The following areas of performance can help identify the highest priorities as follows:

 Using, total cost of ownership assessments to b...

... middle of paper ...

...e time it takes to transform the inputs to a process and to its completed output, is the cycle time. The goal is to reduce the lapsed time to do something, while improving quality and cost effectiveness of the production process whether it is a physical product.

Clearly defining this stage of the supply is vital to it success, along with supplier identification and using supplier scorecards. It is also imperative to use the latest in software to synchronize these systems and manage the information and communication among all stakeholders.

The objectives of both the vice president of the supply chain and of manufacturing should be the same. A commitment to improve supplier relations, improve TCO, and efficiencies throughout the supply chain while simultaneously improving quality, and customer service, which in turn improve the return on the investments, the profits.