Global Supply Chain & Manufacturing Strategy

Running head: GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN & MANUFACTURING STRATEGY
GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN & MANUFACTURING STRATEGY
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GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN & MANUFACTURING STRATEGY
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Discussion......................................................................................................................2
Improvements in the manufacturing strategy.............................................................3
Critical analysis of the alternatives............................................................................3
Improvements in the supply chain management........................................................5
Critical analysis of the supply chain management.....................................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................9

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GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN & MANUFACTURING STRATEGY
Introduction
This report aims to discuss the global supply chain and the manufacturing strategy of
the Leopard tools. The manufacturing strategy and the global supply chain approach that has
been adopted by the company is briefly described in this report. The approach of the supply
chain management including the supporting technologies and the information has been
briefly detailed in this report. The contribution of the manufacturing strategy to the
improvement of performance is briefly described in this report and the methods by which the
strategy of manufacturing and the supply chain management complements each other for
achieving the enhanced synergy and the levels of performance is briefly stated in this report.
Discussion
The company leopard tools is the medium size producer of the manual hand tools that
is utilised by the professional craftsmen and in the home and the market of DIY. The
establishment of the company was done 100 years back and it is commonly popular for the
high quality. The company conventionally manufactured the majority of the tools in Germany
at the long established factory. The company went through huge modernisation with the
enhancement of the tools and the process of the manufacturing. But it has been observed that
the modern factory is still labour intensive. Because of the complexity and the size of the
conventionally designed range, there is immense downtime as the production has moved
from one type to another. The company faces significant competition from the declining
conventional market and the cheap imports and the huge manufacturing costs. The approach
that should be adopted by the company for dealing with the challenges in the business are is
the lean production system.

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GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN & MANUFACTURING STRATEGY
Improvements in the manufacturing strategy
The lean production system is considered to be the approach for the management that
solely focuses on the elimination of the waste while the ensuring of the quality (Aguado,
Alvarez & Domingo, 2013). This approach is most suitable for the business as it faces
challenges related to the manufacturing of the products and the distribution of products and
the quality of the products that are being manufactured in the factories. The proponents of the
lean system claims that the lean production system provides the potential for the increased
modern improvements in the cost and the performance (Hill, 2017). It has been claimed by
several researchers that the with the implementation of the complete system in sole place, the
production would include the significant amount of the workforce in the factory, some of the
portion of the workforce in the space of manufacturing, some workforce in the tools of the
investment and some of the workforce in the development of the innovative products (). It has
been claimed by the researchers that until the adoption of the complete group of the practices
is done, the improvements in the production would be negligible (Löfving, Säfsten &
Winroth, 2014).
Critical analysis of the alternatives
The critical analysis could be done for the manufacturing strategies that would be best
suited for the company and that would provide the company with the major benefits. The
manufacturers of the Leopard DIY could achieve significant enhancement in the quality of
the products and reduce the costs by the removal of the buffers and the impediments from the
system. The elimination of the excess inventory drives the linkages among the suppliers and
assemblers, redesigns the floor of the factory, enforces the increased attention towards the
initial quality and several more aspects (Birasnav, 2014). The meaning of the excess
inventory denotes that the mistakes in the manufacturing or the equipment that are broken
would not hamper the production due to the fact that the downstream processes could draw