Sam’s Club

RFID systems would be operating in up to six of ifs distribution centers and 250 stores. Walmart further said that it expected to be using this technology in up to 13 distribution centers and 600 Walmart and Sam s Club stores by the end of 2005. 

In January 2008, Walmart announced its first real compliance penalties for failure to tag products, specifically for shipments to its Sam s Club chain. Walmart said in a letter to suppliers that a failure to tag pallets sent to its distribution center (DC) in DeSoto, Texas, or directly to one of its stores served by that DC after January 31 would be charged a service fee, starting at 2 per untagged pallet on February 1, 2008, and capping at 3 per pallet on January 1, 2009. 

While much communication is within an industry, many elements, such as shipping documents, are used to communicate between industries, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to do this electronically if the different industries are using different standards. According to one EDI provider, this has caused many companies (including Sears, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Sam s Club, Bell Atlantic, Certified Grocers, BMG Music, Ford, and GM) to force business partners to be EDI capable (www.xebecdata.com/ forced.html). Standards gener-... 

Actual signals for required replenishment are now matched with what has been removed from the network so the next data flow is to the warehouses holding goods for delivery. This warehousing could include regional distribution centers, such as those set up by Wal-Mart on a territory basis to ship loads to individual stores or Sam s Club outlets. It might also include a distributor s distribution center, such as those owned by Fleming... 

STEP 1 UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMER AND SUPPLY CHAIN UNCERTAINTY To understand the customer, a company must identify the needs of the customer segment being served. Let us compare Seven-Eleven Japan and a discounter such as Sam s Club (a part of Walmart). When customers go to Seven-Eleven to purchase detergent, they go there for the convenience of a nearby store and are not necessarily looking for the lowest price. In contrast, low price is very important to a Sam s Club customer. This customer may be willing to tolerate less variety and... 

Convenience store chains aim to provide easy access to customers as part of their competitive strategy. Convenience store networks thns include mauy stores that cover au area, with each store being relatively small. In contrast, discount stores such as Sam s Club or Costco use a competitive strategy that focuses on providing low prices. Thus, their networks have large stores, and customers often have to travel many miles to get to one. The geographic area covered by one Sam s Club store may inclnde dozens of convenience stores. 

Weekly demand for HP printers at a Sam s Club store is normally distributed, with a mean of 250 and a standard deviation of 150. The store manager continuously monitors inventory and currently orders 1,000 printers each time the inventory drops to 600 printers. HP currently takes two weeks to fill an order. How much safety inventory does the store carry What CSL does Sam s Club achieve as a result of this pohcy What fill rate does the store achieve ... 

Return to the Sam s Club store in Exercise 6. Assume that the supply lead time from HP is normally distributed, with a mean of 2 weeks and a standard deviation of 1.5 weeks. How much safety inventory should Sam s Club carry if it wants to provide a CSL of 95 percent How does the required safety inventory change as the standard deviation of lead time is reduced from 1.5 weeks to zero in intervals of 0.5 weeks ... 

Ross Douthat Reinan Salam, Grand New Party (2008) David Frum, Comeback Conservatism (2008). See David Brooks, The Sam s Club Agenda, NYT, June 27,2008, at A19. 

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