Customer complexity

System ID Barco22 GMP Impact Direct Type Personal Computer Software Customized Complexity Medium Configuration Low ERES Yes Risk Level High... 

Understand the impact of business complexity on cost and supply chain drivers. Implement cross-functional processes to evaluate product and customer complexity. 

Customer complexity arises as a result of too many non-standard service options or customised solutions. The costs of serving different customers can vary significantly. Each customer will exhibit different characteristics in terms of their ordering patterns, e g. frequency of orders, size of orders, delivery requirements and so on. These differences will be increased further as a result of the availability of different service options or packages and/or customisation possibilities. 

The Optimum level of gasoline octane is a complex function of a number of factors involving the customer as well as the automotive and petroleum... 

The principal objective of technical service in the chemical industry is to provide timely and professional information and support to downstream customers regarding chemical products and thek uses. It is neither cost-effective nor necessary for a consumer of chemical products to develop a staff of speciahsts having detailed expertise in all aspects of chemical raw materials and thek uses, particularly in a time of increa singly complex and rapidly technologically driven economies. Rather, this variety of expertise is provided in the chemical marketplace by technical service professionals whose knowledge and skills are made available by chemical products suppHers. As such, successful chemical companies provide technical service as a critical element of thek offerings to the marketplace making use of this aspect of the value chain to enhance thek competitiveness. 

The level of technical service support provided for a given product generally tracks in large part where the suppHer considers thek product to be located within the spectmm of commodity to specialty chemicals. Technical service support levels for pure chemicals usually provided in large quantities for specific synthetic or processing needs, eg, ammonia (qv), sulfuric acid (see SuLFURic ACID AND SULFURTRIOXIDe), formaldehyde (qv), oxygen (qv), and so forth, are considerably less than for more complex materials or blends of materials provided for multistep downstream processes. Examples of the latter are many polymers, colorants, flocculants, impact modifiers, associative thickeners, etc. For the former materials, providing specifications of purity and physical properties often comprises the full extent of technical service requked or expected by customers. These materials are termed undifferentiated chemicals (9),... 

The need for weU-trained technical service professionals is expected to continue as an essential aspect of the chemical industry, despite the phenomenal growth ia electronic methods of information storage, retrieval, and transmission. Advanced troubleshooting of complex customer processes and accelerated accurate product development and market introductions should continue to be principal elements of technical service personnel duties. Increased levels of integration, perhaps blurring the lines between suppHer and customer, may come to pass. There are already instances of personnel swapping between customers and suppHers for extended periods to allow cross-fertilization of ideas and provide more accurate perspectives for the companies involved in these efforts. Technical service and research personnel have been those persons most directly involved in such efforts. 

The packaging of distilled spirits has become more complex with both the demands for higher efficiencies of the production faciUties within the industry, and the request by marketing and sales departments for higher flexibiUty to provide customers with greater value on products. 

The BP-Amoco Empress plant complex consists of three interconnected facilities located on a one mile square site. It operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, employing 70 personnel who work two shifts. If the plant were to shut down for a period of time, suppliers would have to sell their product on the spot market and forego profits. Also, from the customer s perspective, even a plant with reserves would soon run out of products. 

Non-complex and/or non-critical applications in mechanical design can also make use of probabilistic design techniques and justify a more in-depth approach if the benefits are related to practitioners and customers alike. Surveys have indicated that many products in the industrial sector have in the past been overdesigned (Kalpakjian, 1995). That is, they were either too bulky, were made of materials too high in quality, or were made with unwarranted precision for the intended use. Overdesign may result from uncertainties in design calculations or the concern of the designer and manufacturer over product safety in order to avoid user injury or... 

The drive for these additional requirements has come not from the suppliers but from users, such as the automotive, utilities, telecommunications, software, and aerospace industries which purchase millions of products and services used to produce the goods and services they provide to the consumer. Rather than invoke customer-specific conditions in each contract, the larger purchasers perceive real benefits from agreeing common quality system requirements for their industry sector. Quite often a supplier will be supplying more than one customer in a particular sector and hence costs increase for both the supplier and the customer if the supplier has to meet different requirements that serve the same objective. All customers desire products and services that consistently/ meet their requirements. While the physical and functional requirements for the product or service will differ, the requirements governing the manner in which their quality is to be achieved, controlled, and assured need not differ. Differences in quality system requirements may arise between industry sectors where the technology, complexity, and risks are different. 

The supplier does not need to own research and development facilities and may subcontract conceptual or complex design work to design studios. Clearly customers in the automotive sector are seeking new solutions to engineering problems and in order to capture the competitive edge, innovation is paramount. 

TQM calls on project teams to analyze business processes in terms of customer satisfaction, and begins with an understanding of who the customers are and who is responsible for meeting their expectations. In relatively simple processes (such as the electronic mail example), the customer-supplier relationship is fairly clearcut. In more complex processes that affect many people in different ways, there may be multiple customer and supplier categories, each requiring its own analysis. TQM untangles these processes by identifying the subprocesses, activities, and customer-supplier relationships they comprise. 

An electric power system involves the production and transportation of electrical energy from generating facilities to energy-consuming customers. This is accomplished through a complex network of transmission lines, switching and transformer stations. 

Because monitoring and data-logging facilities add to initial cost, some customers may be hesitant to choose between a simple configuration without those capabilities and a more complex model including them. The benefits associated with monitoring often outweigh the price premium, as they allow the user to ... 

The most valuable attribute of the laboratories is the vast human and physical resources that can be called upon to solve national problems of great complexity and scope. However, without a national problem or crisis on the horizon, as was the case in the 1990s, the vast funding needed to tnaintain this national resource comes into question. And since the laboratories are all funded almost exclusively by federal dollars, the ultimate customer is the U.S. taxpayer, a taxpayer who asks What have I received for my investment Wliat can I hope for in the future ... 

One example of the complexity of the process was in load forecasting technology. By the 1960s and 1970s, utilities had developed processes to replicate the extensive electric power system for study purposes to include generation resources, transmission networks and individual points of load seiwice to customers. The... 

The petroleum industry is a highly complex primary industry. Its function in society is to provide a reliable supply of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels and lubricants (and well as other related products) for both industrial and private customers. The industry is composed of two basic business elements 1 ) producing companies (often called operating companies) and 2) service companies. 

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