Supply base reduction

This can happen very easily if care is not taken. Technology is changing very rapidly and it is easy to fall behind and not really even be aware of it. Software is changing so fast that in some cases it is difficult to keep current with the capabilities that are available. When you go through a supply base reduction process and move multiple products to a new supplier, care needs to be taken in this area to make sure that you can st up-to-date with the technology. 

How many suppliers does your comparer have For an example, an automobile compaity can have as maity as 50,000 suppliers. Think about the vastness of the task of managing all of these suppliers and getting the performance that your business requires. This is where a supply base reduction may be required to help get the supply base to a manageable level. There are maity benefits to an effective supplier management system. Some of these are better supplier performance on the critical characteristics for your operation, lower costs, lower inventories, less obsolete materials, quicker response to your customer needs, and good relationships with the suppliers. 

In order to effectively reduce the raw material costs that a compaity incurs, the number of suppliers must be reduced to a manageable level. This chapter outlines a 15-step process that can be used to help with supply base reduction. 

Upper management support is the critical starting point for a supply base reduction project. This project will take a significant amount of time and money to be done correctly. More than just lip service will be required to make it happen. The savings from a project like this are tremendous but the up-front costs can be significant and must be committed to so that the project can be completed. 

Supply base reduction Product rationalization Supplier attributes Interviews Supplier selection Supplier evaluation... 

How can product rationalization impact a supply base reduction process ... 

Companies today are looking for ways to reduce raw material costs. Some companies still believe that demanding reduced prices from suppliers is the way to control costs. A more effective way of controlling costs is by doing a supply base reduction process and a preferred supplier selection. When this process is completed successfully the best suppliers are found and real financial benefits as well as many intangible benefits can be obtained by both companies. 

A situation existed where a raw material supplier was causing a very bad color problem in a finished product. The supplier was disqualified but never given aity information about the problem. After repeated attempts to find out what could be done to resolve the problem, the supplier just ve up. Needless to say, the supplier was not happy. The subject came up during a supply base reduction meeting. Very little information was documented so we started the requalification process, which turned out to be successful. The difficult part turned out to be getting the people that were involved initially to put the situation behind them. As it turned out, their product was better than what was needed so another supplier was given the business, but this one remained as a qualified alternate. 

Competitive Bidding, Supplier Partnerships and Agreements, Supply Base Reduction Primarily Domestic International sources considered... 

Sometimes a consolidation of the supply base happens through merger and acquisition. Since the rate of merger and acquisition has increased so dramatically over recent years, it follows that the supply base reduction will have accelerated for this reason alone. 

While we have previously seen supply base reductions as an important way to better manage relationships with suppliers, in the face of substantial concern atout total failure of our supply base for critical cormnodities, we might decide that the seemingly small risk of more relationship issues is more than offset by the benefits as we add more suppliers. Note that this is a risk versus benefit comparison. 

Vertical rewards versus horizontal processes. In supply-based organizations, the supply chain is incented based on cost reduction procurement is incented based on the lowest purchased cost distribution/logistics is rewarded for on-time... 

Application of this model leads to a reduction in the munber of production facilities, as well as the centralisation and relocation of production and distribution centres, the design of new distribution systems and the consolidation and downsizing of the supply base. Within internal integration, G. Stock, N. Greis and J. Kasarda (2000, p. 534) defined vertical... 

The size of the supply base has a major impact on its performance. For example, a reduction in the number of suppliers in the supply base causes the purchase... 

Let us look at the pattern of the reductions in risk probability for conjoint failure given the increases in the number of coins that we flipped. Note that there is a diminishing return on increasing the number of coins, such that as more coins are added, we see smaller reductions in the probability of conjoint failure. This is the general pattern that you will find for this type of situation. What this means is that there are very real limits on the value of inereasing the size of the supply base. 

The differences in the amino acid chemistry of the hide coUagen and the hair keratin are the basis of the lime-sulfide unhairing system. Hair contains the amino acid cystine. This sulfur-containing amino acid cross-links the polypeptide chains of mature hair proteins. In modem production of bovine leathers the quantity of sulfide, as Na2S or NaSH, is normally 2—4% based on the weight of the hides. The lime is essentially an unhmited supply of alkah buffered to pH 12—12.5. The sulfide breaks the polypeptide S—S cross-links by reduction. Unhairing without sulfide may take several days or weeks. The keratin can be easily hydrolyzed once there is a breakdown in the hair fiber stmcture and the hair can be removed mechanically. The coUagen hydrolysis is not affected by the presence of the sulfides (1—4,7). 

Cells require a constant supply of N/ X)PH for reductive reactions vital to biosynthetic purposes. Much of this requirement is met by a glucose-based metabolic sequence variously called the pentose phosphate pathway, the hexose monophosphate shunt, or the phosphogluconate pathway. In addition to providing N/VDPH for biosynthetic processes, this pathway produces ribos 5-phosphate, which is essential for nucleic acid synthesis. Several metabolites of the pentose phosphate pathway can also be shuttled into glycolysis. 

The most successful class of active ingredient for both oxidation and reduction is that of the noble metals silver, gold, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. Platinum and palladium readily oxidize carbon monoxide, all the hydrocarbons except methane, and the partially oxygenated organic compounds such as aldehydes and alcohols. Under reducing conditions, platinum can convert NO to N2 and to NH3. Platinum and palladium are used in small quantities as promoters for less active base metal oxide catalysts. Platinum is also a candidate for simultaneous oxidation and reduction when the oxidant/re-ductant ratio is within 1% of stoichiometry. The other four elements of the platinum family are in short supply. Ruthenium produces the least NH3 concentration in NO reduction in comparison with other catalysts, but it forms volatile toxic oxides. 

The relatively high cost and lack of domestic supply of noble metals has spurred considerable efforts toward the development of nonnoble metal catalysts for automobile exhaust control. A very large number of base metal oxides and mixtures of oxides have been considered, especially the transition metals, such as copper, chromium, nickel, manganese, cobalt vanadium, and iron. Particularly prominent are the copper chromites, which are mixtures of the oxides of copper and chromium, with various promoters added. These materials are active in the oxidation of CO and hydrocarbons, as well as in the reduction of NO in the presence of CO (55-59). Rare earth oxides, such as lanthanum cobaltate and lanthanum lead manganite with Perovskite structure, have been investigated for CO oxidation, but have not been tested and shown to be sufficiently active under realistic and demanding conditions (60-63). Hopcalities are out-... 

The first production of aluminum was by the chemical reduction of aluminum chloride with sodium. The electrolytic process, based on the fused salt electrolysis of alumina dissolved in cryolite, was independently developed in 1886 by C. M. Hall in America and P. L. Heroult in France. Soon afterwards a chemical process for producing pure alumina from bauxite, the commercial source of aluminum, was developed by Bayer and this led to the commercial production of aluminum by a combination of the Bayer and the Hall-Heroult processes. At present this is the main method which supplies all the world s needs in primary aluminum. However, a few other processes also have been developed for the production of the metal. On account of problems still waiting to be solved none of these alternative methods has seen commercial exploitation. 

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