Aspects of Fresh Food Supply Chain

1. The fresh food supply chain is based on various aspects including the need for continuous logistics processes, high profile needed for maintaining the freshness and quality of food items along with the management of packaging, i.e., modified atmosphere packaging and managing flexible logistics network and distribution of products and services (Dües, Tan & Lim, 2013). According to Yu & Nagurney (2013), there are various things that are needed to be considered by the retail companies that serve the fresh food items for meeting the requirements of clients and at the same time, optimize the target functions through setting up of sores in various locations (Yu & Nagurney, 2013). Kaipia, Dukovska-Popovska & Loikkanen (2013) argued that the stores are set up according to size, complaints made by customers, gastronomic backgrounds and supporting a proper supply chain design too (Kaipia, Dukovska-Popovska & Loikkanen, 2013).

While the fresh food supply chain is mainly based on the production, delivery and packaging of the food items keeping in consideration the quality, speed of delivery and customers’ needs and preferences, the car manufacturing supply chain mainly considers the inbound logistics and outbound logistics along with the management of facility and manufacturing of vehicles (Christopher, 2016). As stated by Rushton, Croucher & Baker (2014), the inbound logistics include allocating a good amount of time and using the resources effectively to optimize the logistics operations and ensure controlling the inbound transportation network too considering the ways of reducing operational costs and improvement of services’ delivery (Rushton, Croucher & Baker, 2014). Farahani et al. (2014) stated that the selection of facility, i.e., the place where the manufacturing processes should be carried out across the supply chain and transportation of route optimization should further help in using various algorithms and minimize the prices incurred while managing the inbound shipments (Farahani et al., 2014). As stated by Mangan, Lalwani & Lalwani (2016), the optimization of product flow path and consolidation f selecting and analysis of the centre have contributed to the management of both small and large shipments through reduction of costs of transportation. The outbound logistics, on the other hand include evaluation of new modes and strategies of transportation and optimizing the transportation networks, furthermore selecting a proper delivery option to ensure that the cars are manufactured and delivered properly to the clients largely (Mangan, Lalwani & Lalwani, 2016).

Based on the KPIs, the major challenges of the car manufacturing supply chain are related to the quality, time, cost and CO2 emission and these include:

Aspects of Car Manufacturing Supply Chain

According to Monczka et al. (2015), with the increased manufacturing and production processes for facilitating innovation and meet the consumers’ demands, the local suppliers are sometimes forced, which lessen the demands for global suppliers. The business location must be suitable and selected according to the financial aspects, recruitment and selection, rules and regulations within the workplace for fulfilling the client production criteria and maintain good quality (Monczka et al., 2015). This would be done with the proper optimization of production lines along with management of investments, which is often not done by the shareholders properly and this is a major challenge.

Klug (2013) argued that while managing operations globally, companies face challenges to contain costs and often these companies are faced with challenges of lack of visibility of various components of the supply chain, which creates complexities in accessing relevant data and information for ensuring future growth and development (Klug, 2013). The just-in-time strategies are implemented to maintain stable business operations and ensure that the manufacturing and production processes of vehicles are confined within the allocated time frame.

Quality is an important factor and often the supply chain operations ignore these aspects while focusing on reduction of costs and this hinders the quality of cars too that are manufactured.

There are certain environmental laws and rules to maintain quality standards and protect the environment, because of which, the companies are responsible for the environmental impact and emission of carbon dioxide. Joshi et al. (2013) provided suggestions about The third party logistics provider who should understand the demands for quality and keep track of the records of CO2 emissions for ensuring proper internal controls along with dealing with the global supply chain challenges easily (Joshi et al. et al., 2013).

According to Shukla & Jharkharia (2013), the fresh food supply chain also faces major challenges such as the fresh meat often costs higher than the processed meat, though it depends on each brand. The cost is not limited to the clients though safety precautions are also hindered when processed meat are kept frozen and then sold, which might not be isolated from other ingredients (Shukla & Jharkharia, 2013). Thus, the costs are based on the location and availability, which could hinder the choices and decisions made by clients while purchasing. Aung & Chang (2014) stated that the quality issues are based when more focus had been put on the cost reduction methods. There are cases of cross contamination between fresh and frozen meat and much to the knowledge of consumers, they prefer fresh ingredients and food, and otherwise it might be the cause of their sickness or poor health (Aung & Chang, 2014). As stated by Pang et al. (2015), while packaging, often to consume lesser time, the plastic and polythenes are sued to package the fresh food, which could be harmful and on the other hand, the fresh food might also get damaged due to late delivery to the clients. This might make the clients angry due to lack of fulfillment of their needs while the manufacturing and production of fresh foods incur industrial operations and use of refrigerators that are the cause of CO2 emissions, which damages the environment (Pang et al., 2015). The sustainable or environmental friendly measure should be adopted along with sustainable packaging to maintain the quality standards and create lesser harmful impact on the environment.

Challenges of Car Manufacturing Supply Chain

There are few major strategies and procedures such as waste reduction, lean manufacturing that can reduce the supply chain costs while the Six Sigma process and Total Quality management or TQM are useful for maintaining the quality standards and foster the development of an environment friendly supply chain network (Soysal et al., 2014). Waste reduction procedure could help in managing sustainable practices and keep waste generation under control to create a positive impact on the environment while outsourcing would facilitate transferring human and financial resources outside the place to get the work done (Marques Vieira et al., 2013). The TQM approach enables fulfilling the demands and expectations of clients and ensuring long term success through customer satisfaction with the involvement of individuals in improving the effectiveness of business operations, innovating the products and services along with maintenance of a good culture (Ala-Harja & Helo, 2015). Lean Sigma method is based on teamwork for enhancing the scopes for reduction of wastes through combining of lean manufacturing process and Six Sigma for ensuring consistent production and greater business performance.

2. I have been assigned as a member of the Asian-Pacific Conference advisory team and fulfill my roles of organizing a conference where the various issues and strategies within the Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management will be demonstrated. According to Fernie & Sparks (2014), there are various themes associated with the management of conferences related to the global logistics operations and management of supply chain to ensure successful manufacturing, production and delivery of services (Fernie & Sparks, 2014). The Global logistics and supply chain management are useful and effective for managing both the inbound and outbound logistics operations along with the management of supply chain activities to manage smooth flow of goods and services from the manufacturing and production departments to the clients. Waters & Rinsler (2014) also suggested that within the competitive business environment nowadays, there are various issues and problems associated with the supply chain management and logistics operations within the automotive and fresh food industries (Waters & Rinsler, 2014). At present, none of the companies are allowed to make purchases to fall behind other departments to adjust to changes and this has been one of the major area of focus for the supply chain management. While managing the logistics operations, a huge amount of cost has been incurred and things have got complex with the universal set of choices that are optimal for the management of supply chains (Narayanan, Narasimhan & Schoenherr, 2015). As stated by Mangan, Lalwani & Lalwani (2016), the major configuration components include strategy of outsourcing, operations strategy, channel strategy, customers’ services strategy and managing networks to utilize the assets owned by the companies properly, both within the fresh food and automotive industries (Mangan, Lalwani & Lalwani, 2016). The major challenges that are experienced while managing the supply chain networks include the poor communication across departments, lack of alignment with the business objectives and implementation of information technology, not communicating with the external partners properly (Jean, Sinkovics & Hiebaum, 2014). One of the major topics of increased importance is the risks associated with the disruptions caused due to the supply chain networks and impact of the external forces that have contributed to the risks. Considering the statements by Lavastre, Gunasekaran & Spalanzani (2014), the major trends that increase the exposure to risks include enhanced usage of outsourcing activities, reduced numbers of suppliers, globalization, decreased buffers and increased demands for the delivery of items, which further affected the product life cycle negatively too. The endogenous uncertainty s actually the main source of risks associated with the supply chains and this has often affected the relationship between the firms and suppliers, which has also resulted in technology turbulence (Lavastre, Gunasekaran & Spalanzani, 2014). This has created complexities and the business organizations often have failed to meet the clients’ demands and expectations largely, furthermore leading to sales decline and poor revenue generation in business.

Challenges of Fresh Food Supply Chain

One of the major themes is to look at the supply chain from the shelf back and it was first used by Procter and Gamble. There is a misconception among the organizations about ending of supply chain at the delivery to the store rather than at the shelves from where the clients actually make the purchasing decisions (Day et al., 2013). According to Inemek & Matthyssens (2013), focusing on the demands has often made companies to “push” the products and few examples include Unilever, Wal-Mart, etc.  The conference theme proposes ideas about how the manager of organizations can optimize the processes in conjunction with the retail departments in Singapore and manage streamlining of processes, furthermore ensure smooth flow of goods and services from the manufacturing and production to the shelf for accessible by the clients (Inemek & Matthyssens, 2013). This will also provide a holistic look at the supply chain and make necessary changes or improvements to bring desired positive results. The lack of quality and damage to products could be assessed and necessary packaging should be designed for decreasing the damage from stocking and handling processes (Laosirihongthong, Adebanjo & Choon Tan, 2013),

This theme will allow for recognition of supply chain inefficiencies and analyze the flaws between the planning and execution of supply chain systems. This could facilitate development and implementation of consensus strategies and make forecast to improve the supply chain activities. This theme should not only identify the contemporary issues in SCM, but would also overcome the issues of information latency, furthermore drive the manufacturing and production processes along with better integration of planning and execution over time (Ahi & Searcy, 2013).

The theme considering focus on transportation costs is managed to obtain information about the shipment planning, new transportation management system and create a detailed information report about the routing and pick up within a limited time. Tseng & Chiu (2013) stated that the retailers would be benefited by gaining more opportunities to obtain better supplier options and adopt a scheduling system to automate the processes during the vendor deliveries, though considering the se of web based technologies (Tseng & Chiu, 2013). It would create positive mindsets among shareholders to make investments on TMS and manage centralized transportation system to reduce the costs of transportation by trucks and ensure that there are significant opportunities to save costs through use of optimization technology (Kannan et al., 2013).

The conference theme is aimed at improving the relationships between the suppliers and the organizations and facilitate gaining the short term goals along with formation of partnerships to ensure interpretation of procurement rules and regulations properly too.  Based on Narayanan, Narasimhan & Schoenherr (2015), this would allow the organizations to develop supplier relationship management framework and share the demand signals with them to make sure that they keep on supplying the right resources and materials for the development of products and services (Narayanan, Narasimhan & Schoenherr, 2015).

Strategies for Supply Chain Management

Another effective theme could be the focus on green supply chain management where the customers and retail companies would be able to manage the business operations in such a manner that lesser impact on environment is created and carbon emissions are reduced to the utmost level possible. As stated by Abbasi & Nilsson (2012), the conference theme aims at arranging various initiatives to influence the suppliers in adopting green procedures and find ways to double up the fuel efficient processes during the management of truck fleet during transportation of goods and services (Abbasi & Nilsson, 2012). This would decrease the emissions of harmful gases and carbon dioxide, furthermore lower down the costs incurred during the transportation activities with much ease. The Eco Option products introduction and Green supply chain movement could create scopes for saving the materials and costs of transportation by reducing the cost of packaging and using green materials for fulfilling the needs of logistics operations and customer related information (Zhu, Sarkis & Lai, 2013).

References

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Managing a Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management Conference

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