Company background The Scotts Company started selling hardware and seeds in Marysville, Ohio in 1868. It specializes in seeds, fertilizers, peat, potting soils and other organic materials. By 1995, Scotts was the world’s #1 marketer of lawn and garden products. European operations were launched in 1993, with HQ in Lyon, France, and additional five European businesses acquired in UK, France, Germany, Austria and Benelux. Symptoms and problems The main symptom and concern is that Scotts’ European sales had increased as expected, but margins had dropped, as well as synergies between the acquired companies were not working as expected. In addition, one of Scotts Europe’s largest customers was threatening to leave due to unacceptable service levels that might cause a domino effect to other large customers. The main problem is fundamentally related to supply chain problems, including duplication and inefficiency of sourcing, manufacturing and distribution. Therefore, task #1 is to optimize supply chain and squeeze costs. We would like to elaborate more on sub problems and causes: 1. 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. 2. Products are not standardized and vary by country in terms of type, packaging and specification. This increases production time, production costs, lead tim... ... middle of paper ... ... EUR 2 – 5 mio per year. 5. Assign special key account managers for large customers. Introduce discounting policy and customer loyalty programs. 6. UK’s plant #1 is facing significant losses, due to high fixed and overhead costs. As future prospects are in red, the plant should be closed, equipment moved to plant #2. Planned annual savings are EUR 500k – EUR 750k. 7. A detailed analysis should be made on performance of 13 distribution centers – capacity, inventory turnover, costs etc. It appears most of the centers should be closed as they serve as excessive link in the supply chain, accumulating high inventory levels. All these improvements will boost profitability by identifying at least or more that EUR 30 mio required by U.S.A headquarters. However, we believe it is not realistic to manage all this turnaround in 1 year’s time. It might take from 2 – 3 years.
Andrews is a sensor manufacturer in the market. While the company has been unable to develop a straightforward competitive advantage over the course of the past three years, the competitive landscape of the market has become a significant source of concern for the company’s leadership. There are other companies out there who produce better products, or are able to compete strictly based on price cuts. It came to the CEO’s attention that there is an opportunity for Andrews to shift a large portion of its production to an offshore location. This decision will not only allow Andrews to reduce its labour and material costs, but will also allow for improved distribution practices.
This project belongs in the engineering-efficiency category; therefore, it has to fit at least 3 of 4 performance hurdles, which are 1. Impact on EPS; 2.Payback; 3.Discounted cash flow and 4. Internal rate of return.
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.
Sainsbury 's acquired a percentage of US based Shaw 's Supermarkets in 1983 and in 1987 completed
Lastly, the stores and warehouses are not communicating well which is resulting in confusion for both parties. Store managers waste time by having to spend store hours on the phone with the DC to expedite demanded stock. This time waste can be avoided by properly organizing the warehouse and having informed workers who can get the job done right and on time. Also worth mentioning is the current condition of the warehouse; there is inventory underneath conveyors and scattered across aisles, making it harder to track down stock. Analysis &
After a lot of research a three step supply chain transformation was decided. According to the plan, the company decided to reorganize its supply chain organization, simplify the structure and define functional roles. Cost to serve its stores along with day to day supply chain reduction was planed. Finally foundation for improved supply chain capability for the future was
The Board of Directors unanimously voted for the immediate construction of a new state of the art facility to meet the increased demands. Unfortunately, the construction of the new facility will take three years to be completed. Jim Elliot recognizes this gap and believes that the three year gap will be too long and suggests developing short range solution while the facility is under construction.
Ferdows, K., Lewis, M., & Machuca, J. A.D., 2003. Zara. Supply Chain Forum: International Journal, 4(2), 62-66.
The furniture company Somerset needs to retain its customer service record and remedy any of its global supply chain issues before it has an adverse effect on the brand and start losing customers. With a frequent change in the product catalog, keeping an excessive inventory will cut its profit and some of the product may become obsolete even before the furniture hits the retail outlet stores. In order to achieve profit and success, business employee many strategies and the supply chain strategy are one of the operational management techniques that use analytical decision making process to achieve the company goals and provide tools to effectively compete in the market (Taylor and Russell, 2014).
‘Supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies. It encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, thir- party service providers, and customers’. (Web: Council for Supply Chain Management Pr...
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,
This complex environment together with a global market where input and product prices are continuing to fluctuate and remain volatile. Such changing environments creates a pressing need
All choices made by Seven-Eleven are structured to lower its transportation and receiving costs. For example, its area-dominance strategy of opening at least 50 to 60 stores in an area helps with marketing but also lowers the cost of replenishment. All manufacturing facilities are centralized to get the maximum benefit of capacity aggregation and also lower the inbound transportation cost from the manufacturer to the distribution center (DC). Seven-Eleven also requires all suppliers to deliver to the DC where products are sorted by temperature. This reduces the outbound transportation cost because of aggregation of deliveries across multiple suppliers. It also lowers the receiving cost. The information infrastructure is set up to allow store managers to place orders based on analysis of consumption data. The information infrastructure also facilitates the sorting of an order at the DC and receiving of the order at the store. The key point to emphasize here is that most decisions by Seven-Eleven are structured to aggregate transportation and receiving to make both cheaper.
Coyle, J., Langley, C., Gibson, B., Novack, R. and Bardi, E. (2008).Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective. 8th ed. Cengage Learning, p.366.
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. (1996). Retrieved April 29, 2014, from emeraldinsight.com website: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1464659