CS purchasing

Case Study: The Lear Seating Plant

2. What are the risks associated with direct shipping? What contingency elements are required to overcome these risks?

The requirement in concern of delivery times as well as the condition of items delivered are two main risks of direct shipping. Finding the most accurate way to ship products to prevent any type of delay would be a preferable way of combating any chances of late deliveries. Also, when looking at manning of personnel, it is imperative that there are enough people that are able to work in order to fulfill the delivery requirements. This does not only include warehouse workers but also driver’s ad logisticians as well. When in concern of the condition of deliverables, ensuring that the correct packaging is used as well as employees trained on how to handle them is the best means of ensuring that packages arrive safely to their final destination.

4. An important consideration that allowed Lear to succeed was proximity to its customers and suppliers. Should suppliers to Lear consider co-locating closer to its automotive customers and suppliers as well? Why or why not?

Relocating to their suppliers would reduce costs greatly in regard to the shipment of any parts of materials. There will also be an increase in a professional rapport that can allow for more understanding and aggreeance in areas such as the time that payments are made, how any future business plans are to be conducted and any information pertaining to future profits. The close proximity also increases opportunity for helpful customer responses in to regards to not only Lear but also the suppliers. Any promising information that can be given from the customer’s point of view can allow for future changes to operations that can not only benefit the customers but also Lear and the suppliers as well.

Supply Chain Management at Bose Corporation

1. Discuss how the strategy development process might work at a company like Bose.

Strategic development can allow a company like Bose to better enable any future accomplishments in regard to goals and objectives identified as part of their operations in respect to the supply chain management process. By utilizing strategy development, Bose has the ability to provide additional opportunities to be able to garner the benefits of utilizing the shipping of merchandise from overseas areas where the difference in prices are substantially cheaper. Add in the opportunity from the strategy development process in respect to the sourcing of supply, Bose can look at a diverse amount of suppliers who has accessibility to a plethora of cargo terminals in their company.

15. Why has Bose developed its supplier performance measurement system?

By utilizing Bose’s supplier performance system, they now have a means to measure their suppliers efficiency in regard to the areas of on-time deliveries, customer service, cycle times, and overall quality of work. The ability to observe these areas allows for future opportunities for continued process improvement, which by definition according to tallyfy.com is, “is the act of implementing improvements to a product, service or process.” (2020) When there is a noticeable drop in efficiency from one of Bose’s suppliers, the supplier performance measurement system will aid the company in determining a possible root cause. It may just be a bad period based off of personnel issues where there was a possible high rate of employee turnover or it can be ineffective practices and procedures. As a supplier if you know that you are being evaluated in this manner then there may be more of a reason to ensure that operations are ran a smooth and as effectively as possible.

Reference

Continuous Process Improvement (CPI): Definition and techniques. (2020, February 26). Tallyfy. https://tallyfy.com/continuous-process-improvement/ (Links to an external site.)