Supply chain and operations management

By April 2005, the Supply Chain and Operations management team had indicated that developing closer relationships with their chain partners was now their priority ... 

After exploring the performance measures that interest CEOs, we can ask ourselves how we can help our CEO report company performance in a positive light. In other words, what can we do to make all of the performance measures listed earlier stack up against our competitors and while meeting or exceeding the expectations of our board members, shareholders, analysts, investors, and bankers Effective supply chain and operations management provides ample opportunity to add firm value and competitive advantage. 

Supply chain and operations professionals have numerous opportunities to affect the valuation of organizations. Earlier chapters have discussed value. Supply chain and operations create value for customers by delivering quality products, providing excellent and timely service while keeping costs manageable. Managing each of these areas increases the financial value of a company. Remember that valuation ratios indicate market value of the company. This chapter will examine valuation more closely and explain why valuation is important, how investors and buyers value companies, and how supply chain and operations managers affect a company s valuation. 

Supply chain and operations departments have the distinct capability of impacting a corporations financial performance from several vantage points. Moreover, they are in a position to carry out the corporation s mission and business strategies, enabling the company to compete in the marketplace. It has also been demonstrated that revenue streams, material cost, use of assets, and resultant cash flows are greatly affected by supply chain and operations activities. This chapter summarizes and connects many of the ideas presented in this book and where supply chain and operations managers can make substantive improvements within their companies. 

The Senior Management team had stabilized with the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer and was working more coherently. A three year business plan to rebuild profitability and shareholder value had been developed and was in the process of being implemented. While the focus of the business plan was company-wide performance improvement, the greatest impact was evident in the Supply Chain and Operations Area. 

Under the leadership of the General Manager, the Supply Chain and Operations Area had embraced the principles of lean thinking developed by Toyota (Liker, 2004) and applied them. Within 12 months the operational sections had been reconfigured into 7 value streams that represented the company s major product lines cross-functional teams had been established to eliminate sources of inefficiency such as waste, non-conformance and duplication communication channels had been unblocked and individuals had been empowered. 

Management schools and academies and research associations will find this book valuable to fill the visible gap in basics of supply chain management. This text will provide support to both undergraduate and post-graduate courses containing supply chain and operational excellence and as a main textbook for MBA students. 

Managing the compatibility issues is critical to lead-free transition. These include materials compatibility (solder, components and PWB), process compatibility (reflow, wave soldering, rework, equipment, and yield), design compatibility, reliability compatibility, and business compatibility (cost, supply chain, and operations). 

Professor Chopra s research and teaching interests are in supply chain and logistics management, operations management, and the design of telecommunication networks. 

Before exploring what we can do in supply chain and operations to help create a profitable, competitive, and valuable company, we need to identify a company s overarching purpose and what is important to CEOs. Primarily, the central purpose of a company is to increase shareholder value. Total return to shareholders (TRS) is frequently used to measure management and company performance. From a CEO s perspective, there is pressure to show returns to shareholders that either meet or exceed shareholder expectations and achieve above-average earnings compared to competitors. If they don t, share price is likely to fall due to unfavorable reviews from financial analysts. CEOs report to numerous audiences, such as ... 

Supply chain and operations—outsourcing, asset utilization, inventory management, commodity purchasing, supplier relationships, and distribution. 

With detailed information such as provided by PepsiCo, financial analysis can provide a clearer picture of a firm s financial position as it takes into account assumptions made in reporting. Understanding assumptions allows supply chain and operations professionals to make informed inferences and judgments about how day-to-day actions of the company are being presented to management, shareholders, and analysts. 

Besides fixed assets, managing inventory is one of the greatest concerns for supply chain and operations professionals. At the end of a reporting period, a company must determine how much inventory... 

Cohen MA, Mallik S (1997) Global supply chains research and applications. Production and Operations Management 6 193-210... 

Cohen MA, Moon S (1990) Impact of Production Scale Economies, Manufacturing Complexity, and Transportation Costs on Supply Chain Facility Networks. Journal of Manufacturing and Operations Management 3 269-292... 

For the sake of supply and operations management in this book, the supply chain processes proposed by SCOR will be covered, but using a different terminology, as detailed below, in order to be closer to the organization structure names found in most industries. 

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