Management

Your assignment due at the end of week 6 focuses on supply chain mapping. This exercise enables the organization to understand the strengths and weaknesses of its supply chain. Our text discusses a heat map, which is available to you (see the appendix in the textbook). Flexibility in the supply chain provides a critical foundation to manage resiliency in the event of disruption.Choose a minimum of four of the twelve examples of flexibility and summarize their content, role and expected outcomes for an organization. Feel free to research companies and provide examples of how companies apply some of the examples that you’ve offered. The paper should be a minimum of 500 words, but not more than 1000 words.

ANSWER

Flexible Supply Chain Management

The managers who represent the traditional supply chain was closely work with the strategic leader to develop a flexible and organized supply chain system. Some of the critical functions of a supplier to include marketing and sales and planning. This study will look into four ways of how a flexible supply chain delivers value to an organization paired the study will look into the tight integration required within business units and supplies in order to extract value from the supply chain.

Integration Between Suppliers and Business Units

Other functions of a supply chain must be tightly integrated with the supply chain organization to attain bedrock flexibility. This integration becomes more important especially because it allows for growing. When companies venture into new markets there is always need for additional products suppliers and other processes that might enhance their growth. A flexible supply chain therefore needs to have decision makers from various entities such as product development marketing finance ethics and compliance and sustainability (Han et al., 2017). There must be strong collaborative relationships between the key suppliers and other entities within a supply chain. This will help especially if a company uses third-party logistics providers or extending their planning or resourcing from external organizations.

Collaboration is At the Center of it.

To attain a flexible supply chain all, the strategic and core suppliers must be involved in issues that range from emergency contingencies to labor and financing. collaboration is also essential in the preparation and avoidance of the bullwhip effect. The bullwhip effect can be caused by many actions taken independently. most companies have resolved to the inclusion of codes of conduct in sustainability criteria into third-party relationship contracts.

Leverage Technology for End-to-End Transparency

A flexible supply chain can be essential while responding to volatile business demands periods you know that effectively respond to this volatile demand information needs to be passed through a supply chain. Traditionally, supply chain managers have used some data formats and systems that load delivery of information across a supply chain (Leeman, 2020). There have however been innovative products and software introduced into the market and that oversee smooth and fast sharing of data within the supply chain.

To develop flexible supply chain systems some companies have decided to collaborate with research universities to explore any analytical methods and tools through which they could harness the power of big data and increase their forward-thinking business-wise. most businesses are embracing technology as cloud computing has become mainstream. supply chain managers should therefore be able to take advantage of scalable platforms for data sharing and embrace technology in their first step to develop flexible supply chains.

Taking the First Step Towards Flexibility

Managers need not to ignore that a more flexible supply chain must be created through the integration of matrix technology processes and strategy period this must be done to the business and as well as the business suppliers (Chatzikontidou et al., 2017). This integration becomes more important especially because it allows for growing. When companies venture into new markets there is always need for additional products suppliers and other processes that might enhance their growth. A flexible supply chain therefore needs to have decision makers from various entities such as product development marketing finance ethics and compliance and sustainability. It’s always the responsibility of the supply chain managers to develop flexible supply chains, and businesses depend on it for profitability.

References

Chatzikontidou, A., Longinidis, P., Tsiakis, P., & Georgiadis, M. C. (2017). Flexible supply chain network design under uncertainty. Chemical Engineering Research and Design, 128, 290-305.

Han, J. H., Wang, Y., & Naim, M. (2017). Reconceptualization of information technology flexibility for supply chain management: An empirical study. International Journal of Production Economics, 187, 196-215.

Leeman, J. J. (2020). Supply Chain Management: Fast, flexible Supply Chain in Manufacturing and Retailing–. BoD–Books on Demand.