Continuous Improvement in Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of John Lewis Partnership

This case study discusses the implementation of continuous improvement in supply chain management at John Lewis Partnership. It explores the benefits and challenges of this strategy and provides suggestions for generating a culture of continuous improvement in an organization. The document type is a case study and the subject is supply chain management. There is no course code, course name, or college/university mentioned.

Running Head: Supply Chain 0
John Lewis Partnership
Supply chain management
8/28/2019

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
QUESTIONS...................................................................................................................................2
Literature on continuous improvement............................................................................................2
How can the present SANDC operations be improved still further in terms of efficiency, service
levels, ergonomics and sustainability?............................................................................................4
For an industry of your choice.........................................................................................................5
How continuous improvement has been implemented................................................................5
What was the outcome (positive or negative) for the implementation of this strategy?..............5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
John Lewis Partnership is one of the topmost UK’s businesses in retailing market and it is Semi-
Automated National Distribution Centre in the UK. It provides superior goods with the motto of
“never knowingly undersold”. There are 28 department stores of John Lewis and still planning to
expose more and more stores in the UK. Soon there will be more stores of John Lewis; they will
expand the business by increasing their products (Kay et al., 2014, 5). They will more promote
the new semi-automated national distribution center (SANDC) because they are using the new
and latest technologies that will increase the production of the organization. The company wants
to expand its business more and more so they will support the SANDC for their betterment. For
making good relations to SANDC there will be many benefits like- they designed the item level
picking and also reduces the want of back-of-store facilities. There will be proper layout
sequences and also the items will be easily placed on the store itself. There will be proper
packing of the items in the cartons on pallets, will no tension of receiving the goods. The
delivery will be directly in stores and the house itself also as per the order.

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QUESTIONS
The literature on continuous improvement
John Lewis Partnership Company is one of the huge and top market and the retailing business in
the UK, has a unique tenure structure. It is on the continuous improvement in the business it is
because they introduce a new semi-automated national distribution center that will handle the
small-sized item in the proper packed in cartons on plates. SANDC also uses the latest
technology that will improve the efficiency and accuracy of the items (Miroslava et al., 2016,
329-332). SANDC also provide the warehouse facilities and directly deliver to the stores and
sometimes in the house itself that will reduce the time of the company members. These things
really help the company to improve the productions of the items and also it increases the quality
and efficiency of the product. To improve productivity and business there are some essentials –
 Set the targets.
 Use highly-effective marketing in the market.
 Use new technologies for production.
 Motivate staff by consideration.
These are some essentials that present in the John Lewis and to the successful business there will
be good product, lack of cheap labor and most important there will be beginning to built the good
quality product idea, business plan, sufficient capital, good management etc, so all these things
are present in this company and it will improve their business (Håkan and Persson 2014, 11-26).
Yes, it is important and best way to use the top quality manufacturing because when the
manufacturing is good then automatically the items or products increases its efficiency and
effectiveness that leads to increases the sale of the product. The company would like to expand
the more business and it the productivity of the item is high quality when there will be the top
quality of the manufacturing of the goods. And top-quality manufacturing not only increasing the
sale but also increases the customers’ demands, increasing the business’s value in the market,
also gains the trust of the customers, increases the confidence and loyalty among customers and

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most importantly quality of service helps the company to get customers more appreciate and
maintain the trust that what the company has to offer (Mark and Shevchenko 2014, 44-55).
So, there are many benefits of the top-quality manufacturing in the business, especially in the
John Lewis company, through this their motive of expanding the business in the coming future
will be increasing soon and through this their staff also get satisfied by the manufacturing and
they will get higher consideration for working on the top-manufacturing because there need to
experts or skilled people who know how to work with the top-quality technologies. So, it is best
all over the sides of the business (Cristina and Ventura 2013, 77-88).
SANDC Operations
John Lewis Partnership operations are continuous in the process of improvement, there is one
way they find out that is SANDC, it also helps the company a lot by the techniques and work.
Achieving everything in business is difficult and it also takes time to achieve the target, there is
proper planning, set of goals, management skills, maintain the motivation in employees,
productivity of items, efficiency, and accuracy of the products, etc, have to be managed and John
Lewis managed almost thing to improve the business and would like to expand it more. The
company takes the new opportunities and faces many challenges by the help of the SANDC, but
still, SANDC has to work harder than previous years to improve the work of the John Lewis
business (Yossi 2014, 1-11).
SANDC can still improve their work process, techniques, management system, it is the most
successful center but still there is problem arises related to the efficiency of the product, it is
good but it has to be best among all over country, for improving the efficiency SANDC already
planned the things, set certain targets but still it wants time to implement than planned and this is
issue come across the improvement of the business of the John Lewis company. Every business
has to face a certain amount of challenges so do John Lewis also has to face and overcome the
issues that came across (Andrea et al., 2015, 134-162).
For better efficiency, SANDC planned and innovative new idea but it takes some time. Secondly,
SANDC has to focuses on its IT sector, in business how much important the management in
same way IT sector is also very important while doing business because when your tools and

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equipment are working properly then only there will be the best manufacturing of the product,
there is also need to be resolving the equipment of the company, then only the productivity of the
item increases and all these happen when the SABDC has the best IT sector experts (Youness et
al., 2016, 187-210).
There will be continuous checking of all tools, machines and equipment time to time if there is
any problem or uncertainty in it, so it can solve it before the major problem come through. So, in
this way, the manufacturing does not stop because of any machine or equipment. There is need to
focus on the software also, every company has its software or if not then it buys from another
company. Software issues are one of the major issues among others, it needs to be protected then
only work may happen in the right way. These are the some of the issues that have to be focused
by the SANDC and work on it to improve the efficiency of products, services have to be
delivered on time and keep in mind regarding the accuracy of the product, also focuses on the
economy and sustainability in the center. So, these are the things SANDC has to examine and
resolve the things in better manner (Youness et al., 2016, 187-210).
For an industry of your choice
How continuous improvement has been implemented
What was the outcome (positive or negative) for the implementation of this strategy?
The industry is of wholesale manufacturing of the certain daily household products, to running a
business is not an easy task there will be proper planning, set the goals, proper management,
recruitment process, need to be direction of the task and work that has been aimed by the
company and the cooperation, need to be cooperate the all things in a very keenly way (Ila, and
Mentzer 2018, 133-155).
When you start thinking about the continuous improvement in the organization, then the
management has to communicate with their employees on this topic. Management has to discuss
about the strategy with their employees and teams, but keep in mind that to focus is on the
benefits of the continuous improvement, because when the company simply said then employees
think that now they have to do more work and by thinking this they will unable to achieve the

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task effectively and efficiently (Payman and Searcy 2013, 329-341). There are various methods
for generating a surrounding of continuous improvement in the company, they areas-
 Always pick up the small manageable improvement because sudden big goals may
have a burden on the organization and their teams or employees and this leads to
discouragement and lack of interest among them.
 Communicate with the teams and employees of the organization, it will provide more
suggestions in works and also comes the proper feedback.
 Work as a team, there will be proper division of the task among all the employees.
 Evaluate the results and then there will be proper feedback of each and every work
and planned accordingly if there is any mistake.
 Be intended and calmly handle the each and everything.
There are some ways that discus above for continuous improvement has been implemented in
any organization.
There are many outcomes for implementing this strategy in the organization it may be positive
and negative also. Every action has its own consequences and that may be positive or negative
and it may be both (Richard and Antony 2016, 370-376). But the organization has to deal with it
and mainly it has to find out the result is positive or negative if in case there is positive result
then it is good for the organization but if there is negative result then organization has to pay
more attention and find out the way to convert the negative into positive.
There are positive outcomes of this strategy are as- Continuous improvement is being worked on
the efforts to refine the products, their process and also increases the services by bringing down
the squander and bring up the quality (Jagdeep, and Singh 2015, 75-119). It decreases the costs
of the product, these all increase the business of the organization, so these are the advantages to
this strategy and always continuous improvement leads the more competitive benefits for
organizations that will be right but there are also some negative outcomes of this strategy that
areas-
 Stability is not that much easy to achieve this.

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 Restrain innovation because when all of them are busy in continuous growth then they
are not focused on the new ideas and strategies (Keely et al., 2010, 13-36).
 Poor implementation, because there will be a lack of communication, and this leads to
more issues when things were not clear.
 Workload, there will be more work with employees then they are not motivated or
satisfied with lots of work and it will create an inefficient work have done.

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Conclusion
Through this case study of John Lewis it has concluded that, it was a distinctive ownership
structure company there were 70,000 permanent staff are the partners in the business and there
were 28 John department stores and many other businesses these all things lead that this
company was very huge and well efficient and effective company that provides high-quality
goods and it was 75 years old company. The company had been supplied different types of
protects like- jewelry, garments, outdoor, lighting, furniture, and white goods. This company also
provides the gift lists for the market strategy that means it was well-planned, strategic with new
ideas and their products were high- quality and they want to expand their business in near future
with the strategy of continuous improvement of the organization.
Continuous improvement is being worked on the efforts to refine the products, their process and
also increases the services by bringing down the squander and bring up the quality, decreases the
costs of the product, these all increase the business of the organization. SANDC improves their
work process, techniques, management system, it is the most successful center but still, there is a
problem arises related to the efficiency of the product which has stated in this report. Continuous
checking of all tools, machines and equipment’s are done so if there is any problem or
uncertainty in it, it can be solved before the major problem arises.

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Barcelo, Fernando, Dennis R. Doll, Bassam H. Hassoun, Brian R. Matthiesen, Jedd Weise, and
John B. Young. "Managing and monitoring continuous improvement in detection of compliance
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