Prior to beginning work on this interactive assignment, read the assigned chapters in your textbook and all assigned articles for this week.
Research shows that in the year 2015 alone, 40% of supply chain managers have experienced some sort of supply chain disruption due to operational, industrial, technological, and inventory management issues. Using your own experience in the workplace and/or information presented in the assigned readings, select a company that experienced a supply chain disruption that negatively affected the company’s operations in recent years.
In your post, identify the company you chose, explain what they do, and describe the disruption they experienced in their supply chain and the negative effects it had on the company’s overall business performance. Your post must be a minimum of 250 words.
Now imagine you are a logistics manager at your selected company and you have just received an email from the CEO asking you to come to his office first thing in the morning and give a one-minute pitch on what went wrong and how you would solve the problem(s). Your one-minute pitch to the CEO must include the following:
State the problem/disruption that occurred.
Explain how the problem/disruption affected the company’s operations.
Describe the cause(s) of the problem.
Explain how the company can fix the problem by applying logistics principles to strengthen the organization’s competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
Describe how the problem/disruption can be prevented from reoccurring in the future.
Write a script of your pitch, and practice delivering it to ensure it is no longer than one-minute in duration. Once you think you have it right, use your smart phone, any free online recording service, or app, and make a recording of yourself delivering your pitch to the CEO so you can hear how it sounds. When you are satisfied with your recorded pitch, upload the saved audio file to the discussion forum.
RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS: Listen to several of your classmates’ recorded pitches, and respond to at least one of them with a written response on behalf of the CEO of their chosen company, stating your appreciation of their ideas and also providing at least two constructive suggestions on how their proposal can be strengthened. If you feel their proposal is sufficient as is, provide at least two additional real-world examples from the assigned readings or other credible resources that support your classmate’s solutions.
STUDENT INTERACTIVE ASSIGNMENT RESPONSE 1:
Mane Inc is a Flavor company in Lebanon, OH.Mane supplies flavors to a variety of food and beverage manufactures and retailers.Some of these customers include Starbucks, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Kraft.
In February of 2021, portions of the state of Texas suffered significant power outages that lasted over two months.The effects of the power outage led to manufacturing shutdowns in those areas.At the time, Mane was single sourced on a material that produced in an area of Texas that was impacted by the power outage.The sudden reduction in this raw material availability led to material shortages for Mane that prevented the production of some customer orders.
This particular material that Mane sources from Texas did have a safety stock to account for variation in demand and supply but the safety stock that was maintained was not high enough to mitigate the sudden production shutdown at the vendor’s site in Texas.
The incident led to Mane’s customers experiencing significant delays in their orders.All of this due to a single raw material that we procured from a single manufacturer in Texas.
This incident highlighted the need to have multiple suppliers for this raw material.While Mane does have multiple suppliers for many of its raw materials, this raw material was manufactured specifically for Mane and multiple vendors was more difficult to setup for procurement.
Because of the specialized aspect of the material Mane had to quickly adapt procurement protocols to allow for the expediting of vendor approvals for secondary sources.
Interactive Assignment Response
The selected company for this assignment is Hewlett-Packard, also known as HP Inc. HP specializes in developing and selling various hardware and software components such as laptops, printers, digital cameras, and PDAs. A majority of the firm’s parts are sourced from Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippine, while the assembly is done in China and the United States.
In 2020, many of the countries globally were stricken by the COVID 19 pandemic, leading them to go into lockdown. This lockdown disrupted HP’s supply chain because some components could not reach the assembly points on time. With China being one of the most affected countries it was difficult for the company to ship components from its suppliers to assembly plants, which somewhat contributed to the shutdown of some of its factories due to lack of some products. Furthermore, the lockdown caused logistics issues, delaying delivery of printing and computing equipment to direct consumers and other retailers, especially at a time when demand for such products had risen dramatically (Silver). Besides, HP sells its products globally, with a majority of its market being based in Asia and the United States. Therefore, with the operational disruption to its supply chain caused by the pandemic and lockdowns, it was difficult for the company to undertake order fulfillment on time.
HP’s experience amidst the COVID 19 pandemic and frequent lockdowns that interrupted its supply chain highlighted the need to diversify its assembly points and warehouses. Although HP U.S. and China’s assembly factories meet the firm’s demand, it also presents challenges, especially in instances of disruption of transportation of products to global consumers. To prevent such logistics issues, HP should have multiple assembly points and outlets in most of its market to bring the products closer to customers.
Script
In 2020, our company faced significant disruption in its logistics following a lockdown in some countries in which it exports its products. This disruption inhibited transportation of goods to final consumers, especially when PC use was on high demand. The interruption of the company’s logistics may have been caused by our heavy reliance on few assembly and warehousing points in the United States and China. To prevent a similar disruption from occurring in the future, the firm should diversify its assembly points in various countries to bring the product closer to consumers.
Works Cited
Silver, Sara. “How Kellogg’s, Nike, and HP Handled 2020 Supply Chain Disruptions.” Financial Management, 25 Jan. 2021, www.fm-magazine.com/news/2021/jan/coronavirus-supply-chain-disruptions-kelloggs-nike-hp.html. Accessed 17 Apr. 2021.
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