Supply Chain Design for Cowboy: Challenges, Competencies, and Value

This report discusses the value of supply chain for a start-up company named Cowboy, which manufactures electric cycles. It describes the supply chain map of the organisation’s products, identifies the first and second tier suppliers, discusses the challenges in the supply chain, and elaborates on the relevant order winners and order qualifiers. It also identifies the core competencies in the operations and supply chain and the value created by this supply chain for the organisation and product or service.

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN
Supply Chain Design
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the organisation.....................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
A map to describe the supply chain of the organisation products..............................................2
Identification of first and second tier suppliers..........................................................................4
Identification and discussion of the challenges in the supply chain..........................................4
Identification and discussion of the relevant order winners and order qualifiers......................6
Identification and discussion of the core competencies in the operations and supply chain.....7
Value created by this supply chain for the organisation and product or service........................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11
Introduction

2SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN
The report discusses on the value of supply chain for a start-up company and relies on
the fact about how supply chains can affect the efficiency of the distribution network of the
company. The important points that are highlighted in the report are description of the supply
chain map of the organisation’s products, identification of the first and second tier suppliers,
finding out key functions and the different kinds of challenges in the supply chain. The report
further discusses on various other factors related to supply chain. These factors include
discussion about relevant order winners and order qualifiers along with the core competencies
of the organisation’s operations and supply chain. Along with this other factors are elaborated
such as value creation of the supply chain for the particular product or service of the
organisation.
Overview of the organisation
The organisation chosen for this report is an Australian start-up company named
Cowboy which is primarily into manufacturing of electric cycles (Cowboy.com, 2019). The
company develops its products with the help of 3D Nano printing technology and other non-
electrical components. The battery technology that the company uses lasts for longer period
of time. The battery uses rare metals which are imported from South-American country.
Some of these rare metals are brought about globally from other countries.
Discussion
A map to describe the supply chain of the organisation products
The mapping of the products of the company would required the following steps.
a) Selection of products – In this organisation two products could be selected. In this
organisation two products are currently available (Garcia & You, 2015). Both the
products have two wheels, can accommodate two people and has a range of approx.

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180km. There would be two more products in the future which include three-wheel
version and four-wheel version.
b) Identification of distribution channel – For this organisation the distribution channel
would consist of manufacturers located in the old Toyota plan of Melbourne. From
the manufacturers the products would flow to the retailer’s warehouse and finally they
would go to the retail store (Garcia & You, 2015). Some of the parts do not have
Australian suppliers such as tyres, electronics, battery and motor. Other available
suppliers are for frame, wheel cables, and upholstery.
Suppliers
From both the suppliers the product will flow from manufacturer to retailer.
c) Mapping of physical location – The physical location the by which the market will be
expanded are South-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Sub-continent. The units
of Wallaby sold in these markets would be 450 in Australia per week, 100 in New
Zealand, 900 in South-East Asia and 900 again in Sub-continent (Garcia & You,
2015). The units of Roo sold in the markets would be 150 in Australia, 50 in New
Zealand, 750 in South-East Asia and 450 in Sub-Continent
Australian
Non-Australian
aliAAusAustrali
Frame,
wheel
Electronics, tyres
Wallaby Factory
Roo Factory
South-east Asia (900 units)
Australia(450 units)
New Zealand(100 units)
Sub-continent (900 units)
South-east Asia (750 units)
Australia (150 units)
New Zealand (50 units)
Sub-continent (450 units)
Merchandiser’s
warehouse
Retailer’s
warehouse
Retail storeRetailer

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d) Shipping Schedule mapping – The shipping schedule mapping for Australia is daily
trucking, for New Zealand the number of shipments would be one for each fortnight,
for South-East Asia there would be one shipment on each of the three weeks via
Singapore and finally for the sub-continents the shipment would be once in a month
via Singapore.
Identification of first and second tier suppliers.
A first tier supplier is a company that is required for directly providing the
manufacturing parts and materials to the manufacturer of the company (Wilhelm et al., 2016).
In this case, the first tier supplier for the company would be any manufacturing firm of
Australian directly involved in providing the parts of the bike to the manufacturer.
A second tier supplier can be regarded as the company that is involved in supplying
raw materials or parts to another company. The company getting these raw materials or parts
in turn supplies them to the manufacturer (Aßländer, Roloff & Nayır, 2016). In this
organisation the second tier supplier can be an Australian company who would be involved in
supplying parts of electric bikes to an intermediary company. The intermediary company
would in turn supply those parts to the first tier supplier or the Australian manufacturing firm.
Identification and discussion of the challenges in the supply chain
There could be innumerable number of challenges that could be faced by the people
involved in the supply chain management of a manufacturing company. These challenges
could be stated as below.
a) Service of customers – The supply chain consists of people who sometimes find it
difficult to manage the delivery of products (Christopher, 2016). This is because

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the process needs them to provide right product to the specific people according to
their demands and the product should be delivered within the specified deadline.
b) Control of operating costs – The operating costs of these electric bike start-up
companies have been rising tremendously in recent times (Christopher, 2016).
This has primarily happened due to increase of battery costs, freight costs, costs of
development of new technologies, and increase of labour charges.
c) Management of risks – There is always a possibility of risk which might occur due
to inaccuracy of the supply chain map designing (Hudnurkar, Jakhar & Rathod,
2014). Due to this the whole process might get hampered and it might lead to
inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the entire process.
d) Maintaining good relation with the partners – As intermediaries, suppliers as well
as partners are important components in the supply chain process, hence
maintaining good relationships with these intermediaries is extremely important in
order to go with the flow (Zhang et al., 2014). The queries and issues of the
channel intermediaries must be taken care of in order to have a smooth flow of the
products.
1) Identification and discussion of the key functions of the supply chain
The major functions that are provided by the supply chain process could be stated as follows.
a) Alignment of the flow of products – The supply chain process provides a
systematic alignment of the flow of products, starting from the suppliers or
manufacturers to final retail stores where they would be sold to the customers
(Rushton, Croucher, & Baker, 2014). In this organisation the products to be raw
materials to manufactured products.
b) Integration – Supply chain management is used to integrate the various activities
such as logistics, purchasing, operations and makes sure that these activities are

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connected well in order to achieve the goals of the organisation (Rushton,
Croucher, & Baker, 2014). This would also be useful in boosting up the overall
performance of the organisation.
c) Designing of complex systems – Through the help of simulation tools used in the
process of supply chain, the organisation can predict the behaviour of the supply
chain process (Kim & Laskowski, 2018). This would also help in pointing out the
disruptions caused by small changes in the flow of materials within the process.
d) Logistics – This is also a very important segment of the entire supply chain
process. Logistics ensures coordination among the processes and also takes care of
the communication channel between the processes (Murphy & Knemeyer, 2018).
In this organisation the manufactured products if needs space for storage makes
necessary arrangements in the warehouse just after the commencement of the
manufacturing process. This requires a communication which is entirely done by
the logistics department.
e) Management of resources – The resource management team is a part of the supply
chain management (Monczka et al., 2015). This team functions by allocating
resources for the right activity at the right time for maximising production at
reduced costs.
Identification and discussion of the relevant order winners and order qualifiers
The terms relating to order winners and order qualifiers have been first termed by
Terry Hill who was a professor of London Business School. These terms relate to the process
by which the operational capabilities of an organisation could be enhanced at such a level that
they there exists a competitive advantage as well as market success of the organisation.
(Buckley, Burton & Mirza, 2016). These operations could also be related to marketing of the
products. Due to improvement in operations the products would have the capability of

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winning the and qualifying for orders (Buckley, Burton & Mirza, 2016). The entire process
commences with the preparation of corporate strategy and then goes on with the operations of
the company. Finally the process ends with the criteria that requires the company to keep
going or it might end with by winning or qualifying the orders of the company’s business.
For the above organisation, a order qualifier can be attributed to the battery used in
the electric cycle which had 3D nano technology, a characteristic material used in the
products of the company (Rogers, Baricz & Pawar, 2016). Hence, due to usage of this
technology, the products of the company might be able to win bids of the customer and can
regarded as order qualifiers.
Similarly, greater longevity of the non-electric components might be the reason for
the company to win the orders (Roh, Hong & Min, 2014). The order winners as well as order
qualifiers are both specific to the market as well as time. These terms might be different for
different customers in different markets according to the point of view of the customers (Roh,
Hong & Min, 2014). Due to change in perspectives, the strategies adopted by the firm would
change variably in different points of time in order to support the needs of marketing.
Sometimes it might also happen that a certain product qualifies for an order qualifier in the
current situation which had previously been qualified as an order winner.
Identification and discussion of the core competencies in the operations and supply
chain
Core competencies can be regarded as some particular resources or the strategic
advantages of a company that permits the company to become competitive within its
industrial market. These strategic advantages can be combination of pooled knowledge, or it
can be technical competency of the workforce (Thistlethwaite et al., 2014). An organisation is

8SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN
required to develop and put more focus on its core competencies in order to gain a good
reputation in the market which would further enhance its brand recognition.
For this organisation the core competencies could be the advantages that the company
has over its competitors. These core competencies are required to propose value for the
organisation (Vatankhah Barenji, Hashemipour & Guerra-Zubiaga, 2015). One of such
criteria could be the usage of 3D nano printing technology for framing of the products and
also presence of non-electrical components. Another criteria developed for being the core
competency of the company has been the less time in recharge for the battery, that is, only 8
minutes. Other core competencies for the organisation could be completely recyclable
components of the bicycle with attractive offers to the customers such as buy-back policies or
incentive policies. These competencies include products with usage of rare metals which
could reduce urban congestion. The list includes many other advantages such as top speed of
80km/hr for the product Wallaby and 105 km/hr for the product Roo.
Other factors included in this category could be rapid maturation, less costs for the
manufacturing of the components and the rise in capability.The electric bicycles have swiftly
came down in price and had brought about transformation in the method of transportation of
millions of users. Due to the introduction of these bicycles the people could easily and
smoothly travel from one place to another at faster speed covering a greater distance as
compared to electric bicycles (Vatankhah Barenji, Hashemipour & Guerra-Zubiaga, 2015).
Value created by this supply chain for the organisation and product or service
Due to the structure provided by the supply chain provided for the organisation, the
materials and components could smoothly flow through the intermediaries from the producer
or the supplier to the customers (Chen, Preston & Swink, 2015). The suppliers have been
divided into two segments who take care of specific parts of the products. This structure has

9SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN
helped in getting accurate beneficial parts from the particular suppliers (Chen, Preston &
Swink, 2015). The parts such as frames, wheels and others have been delivered by the
Australian suppliers while parts such as electronics and tyres have been delivered by non-
Australian suppliers.
Due to this structure of supply chain, the customer service is boosted up to a greater
extent. The structure has also helped in reducing the purchase cost as well as the production
cost. Due to the presence of this supply chain, the retailers could get quick delivery of the
products which might otherwise have expensive inventory costs. Through this supply chain
the manufacturers could get easy delivery of the materials and they could easily avoid any
material shortage (Ramanathan, 2014). These material shortages may otherwise lead to
shutdown of the production process. Due to the presence of the supply chain manager, the
supply chain costs can be controlled and reduced. This automatically leverages the profit
leading to its dramatic increase. (Ramanathan, 2014). The usage of fixed assets is decreases
due to the presence of supply chains. These fixed assets include plants, warehouses and
vehicles of transportation. Due to this reason the cash flow of the firm also moves up
(Christopher & Ryals, 2014).
In this organisation there is much specification given to the supply chain process,
starting from the suppliers to the shipment process (Monczka et al., 2015). The shipment
process has also been very specific to the two models targeting the particular needs and
demands of the global customers. Due to the specification in the shipment process, the
specified models are shipped properly catering to the requirements of the proper customer
segment. From the map it is clear that the targeted markets can be four. They could be South-
east Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Sub-continents. Different number of products of the
two models of electric bicycles are sold in these markets according to the demand of the
customers. This has led to mitigation of the further complexity of the supply chain process.

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Due to all these reasons the supply chain process of the start-up organisation had been
beneficial to it and it had made the process very smooth and convenient for the organisation.
Relevant order winners as well as order qualifiers are stated.
Conclusion
From the above report it could be concluded that supply chain has been a very
important process for an organisation which had helped it very significantly in the process of
transferring the raw materials or the products as well as money or goods from the
manufacturer or the supplier to the end customers. In this report the value of supply chain had
been provided in the context of a start-up organisation manufacturing electric bicycles. The
topics broadly discussed in the report include mapping of the supply chain process of the
products of the organisation. The uses of the supply chain are also broadly stated along with
the key competencies of the operations and supply chain management of the organisation.
Other than this the identification of first and second tier suppliers are also done along with
their respective discussions. Finally the report concludes with the value proposed by the
supply chain process to the chosen organisation.

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