Agility customer responsiveness

Flexibility and agility. Customer requirements and operating environments are dynamically changing. Addressing flexibility and agility issues implies the ability of reactive and proactive response to change. 

Supply chain integration in a virtual environment considered the process by which suppliers, partners, and customers within a shared market space collabora-tively plan, implement, and manage the flow of information, services, and products along the supply chain in a way that improves business operations in terms of speed, agility, real-time control, or customer response (Liu et al. 2008). 

AU of the above examples are agile supply chains, and each is dominated by a key player. The characteristics of an agile supply chain are quick customer response at each level of the chain, flexibihty, scheduling triggered by customer demand, open and real-time information flow, simultaneous new product development, and as Morgan (2004) says pipeline cost improvements. If agile is to be achieved measurement and control, or at the least monitoring of performance, is necessary. 

A fundamental tenet of agility is customer responsiveness, hence the need to ensure that the primary measures of business performance reflect this imperative. 

Have Agile networks for a customer-centric response... 

On the other hand, if a multi-domestic strategy (formerly termed host-market production) is implemented, the emphasis is put on the customer normally, the peculiarities of the distinct markets and their customers demands require an increased product differentiation and therefore a higher degree of responsiveness and flexibility, which results in an agile supply chain strategy. In addition, the smaller product quantities do not allow for large-scale, cost-efficient production. 

Our model has three main parts. The first part consists of the EC 61508 steps needed for developing the environment description and then the phases 1-4 (concept, overall scope definitions, hazard and risk analysis and overall safety requirements). These initial steps result in the initial requirements of the system that is to be developed. This is the key input to the second part of the model, which is the Scrum process. The requirements are documented as product backlog items. A product backlog is a list of all functional and safety related system requirements, prioritized by the customer. We have observed that the safety requirements are quite stable (e.g. the response time has to be less than the Process safety time for a fire alarm system), while the functional requirements may change considerably over time. Development with a high probability of changes to requirements will favour an agile approach. 

One manufacturer has found a way to overcome the lead-time problems so as to be able to quickly respond to fashion. Benetton, an Italian apparel manufacturer makes sweaters in bulk, but delays the dyeing process until after initial sales figures are received from the retailers. In other words, colour choices are made after the manufacture. This approach has increased the cost of production by 10 per cent but has resulted in improved forecasts, less surplus stock and due to quick response to customer demand higher sales which has more than compensated for the inCTease in production cost. Major retailers are responding to challenges of lean and agile supply chain (see Chapter 13) as the following case example of Tesco illustrates. 

In the future, organisations must be much more demand-driven than forecast-driven. The means of making this transition will be through the achievement of agility, not just within the company but across the supply chain. Responsiveness also implies that the organisation is close to the customer, hearing the voice of the market and quick to interpret the demand signals it receives. 

As we discussed in Chapter 5, responsiveness essentially is achieved through agility in the supply chain. Not only can customers be serviced more rapidly but... 

However, not all suppliers are equally capable in all performance dimensions. Individual suppliers must decide what capabilities they would build, given changing customers needs (discussed in Chap. 2). Examples of such capabilities would be lean-processes, collaboration, procurement, agility, information transparency, responsibilities as tier-1 supplier, and innovation. The buyer, therefore, must carefully build a portfolio of suppliers that maximizes the fit between what it needs and what the suppliers can provide. 

As suppliers take on more responsibility for technology innovation, they will need to become more agile and adept in managing the technology portfolio. This may create opportunities for the entry of more established suppliers from the consumer electronics to create modular systems. In some cases suppliers with high business volumes (because of multiple customers) can advance technology much more effectively than the OEM. The supply chain, as a whole, must determine what kind of partnership would be most effective. In what follows, we describe some of the elements of supplier management (shown in Fig. 4.1). 

First, it is key to understand the sources and causes of uncertainty in demand, and to take steps to position the supply chain to benefit from this uncertainty. The easy option is high-volume, low-variety, low-demand uncertainty. The tough option is the opposite of all three. Agility seeks to increase responsiveness to volatility and end-customer demand uncertainty. 

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