Retail supply chains

The Retail Supply Chain 773 4.3. Flexible Chtumel Capability 781... 

Retail Supply Chain FOR RETAIL SUPPLY CHAINS 781... 

RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN COMPONENTS 776 5.5. Information Technology 782... 

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES FOR RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT... 

Strategic Advantages through Retail Supply Chain Management... 

Retail supply chains are different than other industry models. Many of the components of the supply chain are the same product sourcing, inbound transportation, processing, location and storage of inventory, outbound transportation, company operations, and information. However, retailers are at the end of the chain, just before the products touch the consumer. As a result, the retailer is at the end of the cumulative efficiencies and deficiencies of aU the chain partners. It may be that retail supply chains are just a bit more complex. Imagine the thousands of vendors, each with their own ideas and operations, aU moving with a thousand different retailers set of unique requirements and multiply this by the 90,000-t different stock keeping units (SKUs) in the typical large discount store. 

Figure 3 Retailer/Vendor Affairs in the Retail Supply Chain.

Up to this point, retail supply chains have largely generated greater profit margins through driving out inefficiencies. For example, retailers have pushed the function of maintaining an inventory back onto the vendor or middleman. Vendors, in turn, have required lower prices and faster deliveries from their suppliers. This type of approach has been effective, but for many supply chains there is precious little fat stUl left to cut out of the system. To reach the next level of efficiency, productivity, tmd profitability, a new perspective on what retail competition means wfil have to be adopted. 

Multiple forecasts for the same line of business within the organization are common (if any planning is even done). The gap between what is planned and what actually happens represents lost profits and lost opportunities. The new paradigm for retail supply chain management begins with an accurate view of customer demand. That demand drives planning for inventory, production, and distribution within some understood error parameters. Consumers will never be completely predictable. At the same time, prediction is bounded by limitations in our statistical and modeling sciences. We can... 

For example, the presence of competing retailers offers a customer the choice of visiting the competition if one retailer is out of stock. In anticipation of such spillover customers, as well as the increased options for their own customers, retailers can adjust their inventory. An individual retailers supply chain choice is an equilibrium response to competing retailers choices. 

For manufacturers and retailers, supply chain is business. The S OP process aligns the organization to the business strategy. However, as shown in Figure 5.7, one of the issues is clarity of business strategy and the understanding of supply chain processes by the executive teams. 

Waller M, Johnson M, Davis T (1999) Vendor-managed inventory in the retail supply chain. J Bus Legist 20 183-203... 

This case describes the changing role of the distributor in the retail supply chain and one company s response. This response involved new facilities and systems for distribution. The key need of the business was for flexibility to meet fast-changing levels of demand, customized customer requirements, and product changes. 

Demand chain excellence A tale of two retailers. Supply Chain Management Rev. 5 40-46. 

Wong, W.K., Guo, Z.X., 2010. A hybrid inteUigent model for medium-term sales forecasting in fashion retail supply chains using extreme learning machine and harmony search algorithm. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 128, 614-624. 

The model defines main types of the electronic service units present in the e-retailing supply chains in the global setting. These types include ... 

The list of service types is not exhaustive and other types of services can be used such as fraud detection and shipment insurance. Figure 12.3 shows the physical e-retailing supply chain process along with the necessary electronic services. The expansion of the Buy product task is given in Fig. 12.4. The message flow for this... 

A model for joint optimization of the physical and information flows in e-retailing supply chains has been elaborated. The model ensures that physical supply chain units have appropriate information processing capabilities at their disposal. The importance of the concurrent optimization increases along with a growing number of electronic services available over the Internet. The additive manufacturing or 3D printing can further process even more rapidly. 

Monopolization retail supply chains for pasteurised milk... 

However, with the growing presence of multinational dairy firms in the early 1990s and the development of supermarket chains, real competition for milk and dairy product sales appeared. Since 1995, supermarkets and other private retail venues, such as the growing number of convenience stores, have become major forces in the distribution and sale of fluid milk and cui expanding palette of dairy products. Most state-owned milk compcuiies have been privatized and have adopted market-oriented business practices. In this current phcise, the dcury product retail sector in China allows multiple retail supply chains to coexistence (liu, 2000), and competition in most urban dairy markets is intense. 

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