Supply Chain Management: Concepts & Practices

This assignment delves into the core principles of supply chain management (SCM). It examines various aspects of SCM, such as operations and logistics, knowledge management, supply chain integration, and the influence of factors like visibility, flexibility, and technology on performance. The provided bibliography includes scholarly articles and textbooks that explore these concepts in depth, offering a comprehensive understanding of contemporary SCM practices.

Supply Chain And
Operations
Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Critical identification of area to be modified..............................................................................1
Critical analysis of theories and concepts...................................................................................3
Applying models, tools and techniques in different areas of operation......................................4
Critical understanding of effectiveness and limitations of applied models and factors..............6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Supply chain is considered as the combination of processes at a higher level. These
processes include procurement, manufacturing and then supplying the products and services to
various dealers and customers (Brandenburg and Seuring, 2014). Various bodies can be
considered as a part of the supply chain such as people, firms, resources etc. anything that is
being involved in the process of supplying from the supplier to the customer is termed to be as a
part of supply chain management. Operation management is classified as that field of
management in which it focuses on the designing and then managing of the production. Also, it
involves any sort of re designing if necessary. The report focuses on demonstrating the ability to
make any changes in some area. Also, it includes various models and theories for a better
understanding in CEVA. Benefits and limitations of techniques, tools and models have also been
included.
Critical identification of area to be modified
CEVA logistic is a global supply chain company which is having its head office in
Netherlands while they are having their operations around 170 countries with 50000 employees
all around world. They are been implementing and operating freight management solutions to
large multinational firms as they are having their reach in about 170 countries of world and
having operational sites of about 1000 in world (Scheibe and Blackhurst, 2017). The freight
management service which they are been doing is mainly concern and operating through air,
water and road transport they are also providing customers with custom brokerage with having
value added service of firm. The service which they are providing to its customer is basically
tailor made as per the wish of customer company is allowing them service in terms of warehouse
or their distribution service. This service which company are providing to its customer would
mainly be including that of kitting, packaging, warranty repair management and so on.
Azadegan and Jayaram, (2018) included that this company which is dealing with the
products or service mainly involving logistic and supply chain management systems would be
tailor made only. Under this the customers are getting chance to demonstrate their wish and
company would be making their order as according to their demand only. CEVA is been
operating in Jordan as well with providing them service like that of air, ocean freight and supply
chain management maintaining into sector like that of automotive, retail and wholesale, energy,
healthcare, technological and industrial or aerospace. Fan and Stevenson, (2018) also said that
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the working which they are been doing should be involving more of customer tailor made
products and service that are given. While they are very much committed towards their
operations and meant to deliver the best kind of service to their customers. The supply chain
management which is an important part of CEVA as they are involved in supplying raw
materials and finished goods to end use customer or to those companies which are in need of
such products.
Migdadi and Almestarihi, (2018) included that operations of CEVA are been divided into
two major parts which are business process management and improvement that is meant to run
via freight management of company. The other one is business process excellence this would be
fulfilling the role of that contract logistic customers. CEVA is indulged into making positive
impact on all the customers and their supply chain in this way company is attaining their
excellence in operation. There are many things which would be including within the supply
chain solution of company and this is also giving customer chance to get all things on correct
time.
Although they are working on international level which is also on same time very much
challenging for them the reason behind this could be higher amount of changes in market
demand of customers across the globe. This thing must be changed by company so that they are
getting and changing as per the need and demand of customer which must be improved so that
company is getting more and more of profits (Srinivasan and Swink, 2017). In this company
there is very immense pressure of lowering down of cost for the company which is also part
where change or modification would be required.
While on the other hand the most prominent area which will be requiring modification
within company can that of be packaging only. As the Berger, Tortorella and Rodriguez, (2018)
said that packaging system which CEVA is using would be falling into part of not brining more
profits for firm. They are doing the packaging and then supplying their goods all around the
globe which means that their packaging should be very much cost effective and well equipped.
This would be keeping the product which is into cargo safe and could be dispatch to end use
customer but this is not really been implemented within company so this must be done.
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Critical analysis of theories and concepts
Supply chain management is the process which is mainly concerning with management
of the flow and movement of goods and service of company. The movement could be tracked as
per conversion of raw materials into finished goods and service then providing them to customer
or other companies. This could be of many types of commodities like that of raw materials, work
in process, inventory and finished goods as well are included within. While the supply chain
management process will be including all the steps which is basically there within the procedure
of management as well, like that of planning, selecting, execution or collecting of raw materials.
Palandeng, Timbel and Massie, (2018) included that supply chain is the most important
part of any companies like that of manufacturing, operations, retail and wholesale one. So for all
these industries supply chain and operations management is very much essential. Various
theories of supply chain management include the following:
Resource based view-
They are those resources of firm which would be giving them potential so that firm could
be getting competitive advantage from market. Under this theory of supply chain management it
was said by Barney in his article which was published in year 1991 that all firms that are
operating within are heterogeneous which means that they are not same so the type of resource
which would be required could also not be same. The focus of supply chain management is on
internal resources which company is getting this will be including competences, assets and
capabilities so that higher competitive advantage could be gained. Ketchen, Craighead and
Cheng, (2018) include that concept behind this theory would be including all factors which are
indulging into meeting competitive advantage of company with the use of resource which are
been there. The relationship between good successful strategies with that of source of advantage
could not be understood in easy terms as this is not easy. In this part there are some key
managerial tasks that could be implemented which could be like that of identification of potential
resources of firm, evaluating whether VRIN criteria could be used and at the end developing and
protecting resource which are passing all the above evaluations.
Just in time-
This theory of supply chain management was majorly used as just in time production or
Toyota production system which was originated in Japan in late 1960 and early 1970 and that too
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with famous company of car manufacturing Toyota. Just in time theory is aiming at reducing the
flow of time that if used to produces as certain type of product and also the response time that is
employed at the time of supplying. There are many alternative terms that are been used for this
theory in various companies like that of Motorola short cycle manufacturing (SCM) or in IBM as
continuous flow manufacturing (CFM). Under this part Wu, and Chiu, (2018) included that there
are a good deals of important manufacturing in just in time like that of household, lost of size of
one, pull systems, fitness for use, compact plant layout etc., objectives and benefits of these
systems could be seen in the form of two ways which is specified and quantitative and other is
generally listing and discussion.
While there are also many potential risk that are been involved within the just in time
theory that could be including necessary use in finding suppliers which are more close to supply
material with the limited advance notice to company.
Total quality management (TQM)
Under this theory an environment or climate would be made this would be improving
quality of service and that of products. In this type there are many types of tools and techniques
which are been used like that of ISO 9000 or lean manufacturing or that of six sigma. This is
mainly manufacturing method that is been used and was widely used between 1980 and 1990
(Bag, Anand and Pandey, 2017). But under this one they assume zero defect within products
which is certainly not true in any means or kind and this is also criticised by many.
Applying models, tools and techniques in different areas of operation
The basic forte of supply chain management in CEVA is to decrease the amount of
supply chain cost so that the demands can also be met within an affordable set of range as well
(Brindley, 2017). Enormous number of operations and cost factors have been included in the
same such as the cost of the raw material that is being used, transportation costs, fuel costs,
indirect as well as direct manufacturing costs etc. Various number of tools are being used in the
supply chain management of CEVA as well and these all are discussed as under :
Shipping tools status
It can be considered as a very popular as well as important tool or software because the
customers are always eager to know the status of the product they have requested for (Monczka,
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Handfield and Patterson, 2015). So, with the help of shipping tools status, one can get the details
of the location where the product has been moving and in what time, there is a possibility that it
will reach the specified place. Various modernised and advanced features have been used so that
it can become easy enough to track the product and logistics so that one can get an exact date. It
acts very important because in various organisations like CEVA, there are possibilities that on
one specific product, the whole process has been stopped. So, at CEVA, logistics try their best to
deliver the products on time so that no further organisation has to get suffer because of that.
Order processing
The whole process expands when CEVA received order from different clients about the
products and services that are to be delivered by CEVA. So, at the time of order processing, there
are various elements that are required by CEVA for managing all the processing efficiently and
appropriately. These tools for order processing involves identifiers and metrics because these
tools are being used for evaluating the intake analysis (Stadtler, 2015). Also, it plays a very
important role in ensuring that the product must be delivered on time. Therefore, it is very
essential for CEVA to stay ready with these order processing tools so that whenever an order is
being received by the client or customer, the company can take actions that time, thus it can
result in a faster processing of all the operations and services, thus providing benefits to the
company in achieving the popularity as well as productivity at a higher extent.
Supplier management
Instead of various features that deals with the cost analysis and other management tools,
there are various supplier management tools as well (Schönsleben, 2016). The basic forte of
using such supplier management tools is that it helps in investigating about the history of the
partnerships in business and what influence it can have on the supply chain of CEVA. So, this is
considered to play an important role as it provides the actual quality and level of the suppliers
they should contact and that can actually have a positive influence on the organisation.
Security features
It is obvious that CEVA deals with enormous operations and processes which means
there must be high standard security as well. So, for maintaining that security levels, the
organisation can make use of efficient and appropriate software's so that their personal data can
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stay secured. The company contains all the data and information about the employees, products,
operations and services. Along with this, it also consists of some amount of personalised
information that must be accessed by some specific authorities only. Thus, for maintaining this,
it is important to use a software that must be capable enough of providing proper security to
CEVA so that their personal data and information can stay managed and under control as well.
Audit tools
Audit tools and techniques are considered as that tools that are specially known to be
used at the time when any external body or outsider visits to have a look at CEVA's operation's
(Rushton, Croucher and Baker, 2014). These features can act essential enough at the time of
many further processes such as at the time of some legal operations, any sort of legal challenge
etc. In case of making a documentation on the overall flow of the supply chain that is being done
in CEVA also are covered within this.
Critical understanding of effectiveness and limitations of applied models and factors
The models and factors that have been used in the supply chain management of the
CEVA includes security features, audit tools, shipping tools and techniques, order processing
models etc. On making an analysis, it can be evaluated that security tools can be considered as a
very basic and important requirement for CEVA because it is one of the leading companies and
obviously as it is big enough, there must be an efficient amount of data as well. Therefore, the
company should include some specific software so that it can help in maintaining proper security
and safety for the personalised information and data (Christopher, 2016). The security features
should be capable enough that no external body can have access to it, even by the means of
specialised factors such as by phishing etc. On the other hand, it can be said that the tools for
representing the status of the shipping are also equally important because at many times, there
are situations in a company when the whole process has to be stopped because of the
unavailability of some specific product or service. This can in turn prove very time wasting
process for the people involved. Thus, by the means of the status checking, one can have an idea
where the specific product and logistics is and till what period it will be delivered to the specific
location.
So, if in case, the logistics are not able to deliver the products on time because of some
reason, it can influence the overall processing of the company. It is because there comes various
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types of situations when the logistics is not able to supply the product on time such as fuel issues
or issues with the vehicle etc. Thus, in such cases, the processing of the whole company can get
affected by it. Thus, it is very important to maintain the processes in a way such that it might not
cause any further issue or trouble to the company that can barred the services and functioning of
CEVA (Krajewski, Malhotra and Ritzman, 2015). Also, the company should stay aware of
operations they have to perform at the delivery of the orders from different clients because there
are some processes that are to be used at the time when the company receives orders from
different clients. At that time, the company makes sue of these order processing tools such as
metrics etc. in order to evaluate and check the effectiveness of the products and services (Jacobs,
Chase and Lummus, 2014). Thus, CEVA should ensure to stay updated and ready with these
order processing tools so that at the time of delivery of any order from the client, they can
immediate start the order processing tools and make the analysis and evaluation they perform
with that. It can further help in speeding up the rate of all the processes and operations at CEVA,
thus focusing on increasing the rate of popularity as well as productivity. There are audit tools as
well that plays a very important place as well because it helps in the time if any legal action has
been taken for any operation or service of the company. Thus, these are said to provide help at
such crucial situations. Thus, these factors can be considered enough in describing the
effectiveness and limitations as well of the tools, models and techniques that have been applied
to the supply chain management at CEVA.
CONCLUSION
From the above part which was dealing with supply chain and operation management of
CEVA which is a logistic company and its is providing supply of many raw materials and
finished goods in many parts of world. So it was clear that all tools and techniques which are to
be employed in supply chain must be efficient which thus would be helping firm to greater
extent.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Azadegan, A. and Jayaram, J., 2018. Resiliency in Supply Chain Systems: A Triadic Framework
Using Family Resilience Model. In Supply Chain Risk Management (pp. 269-288). Springer,
Singapore.
Bag, S., Anand, N. and Pandey, K.K., 2017. Green Supply Chain Management Model for
Sustainable Manufacturing Practices. In Green Supply Chain Management for Sustainable
Business Practice (pp. 153-189). IGI Global.
Berger, S.L.T., Tortorella, G.L. and Rodriguez, C.M.T., 2018. Lean Supply Chain Management:
A Systematic Literature Review of Practices, Barriers and Contextual Factors Inherent to Its
Implementation. In Progress in Lean Manufacturing (pp. 39-68). Springer, Cham.
Brandenburg, M. and Seuring, S., 2014. Quantitative models for sustainable supply chain
management: Developments and directions. European Journal of Operational
Research. 233(2). pp.299-312.
Brindley, C. ed., 2017. Supply chain risk. Taylor & Francis.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Fan, Y. and Stevenson, M., 2018. A review of supply chain risk management: definition, theory,
and research agenda. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics
Management.
Hugos, M. H., 2018. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.
Jacobs, F. R., Chase, R. B. and Lummus, R. R., 2014. Operations and supply chain
management (pp. 533-535). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Ketchen, D.J., Craighead, C.W. and Cheng, L., 2018. Achieving research design excellence
through the pursuit of perfection: Toward strong theoretical calibration. Journal of Supply
Chain Management. 54(1). pp.16-22.
Krajewski, L. J., Malhotra, M. K. and Ritzman, L. P., 2015. Operations management: processes
and supply chains. Pearson.
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Migdadi, M.M., and Almestarihi, R.D., 2018. An empirical examination of collaborative
knowledge management practices and organisational performance: the mediating roles of
supply chain integration and knowledge quality. International Journal of Business
Excellence. 14(2). pp.180-211.
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B. and Patterson, J. L., 2015. Purchasing and supply chain
management. Cengage Learning.
Palandeng, D.I., Timbel, A. and Massie, J., 2018. Influence Analysis of Supply Chain
Management and Supply Chain Flexibility to Competitive Advantage and Impact on
Company Performance of Fish Processing in Bitung City. Journal of Research in Business,
Economics and Management. (10). 1. pp.1783-1802.
Rushton, A., Croucher, P. and Baker, P., 2014. The handbook of logistics and distribution
management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
Scheibe, K.P. and Blackhurst, J., 2017. Supply chain disruption propagation: a systemic risk and
normal accident theory perspective. International Journal of Production Research. pp.1-17.
Schönsleben, P., 2016. Integral logistics management: operations and supply chain management
within and across companies. CRC Press.
Srinivasan, R. and Swink, M., 2017. An investigation of visibility and flexibility as complements
to supply chain analytics: An organizational information processing theory
perspective. Production and Operations Management.
Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and
advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Wu, L. and Chiu, M.L., 2018. Examining supply chain collaboration with determinants and
performance impact: Social capital, justice, and technology use perspectives. International
Journal of Information Management. 39. pp.5-19.
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