Sustainable Supply Chain Management

This assignment delves into the multifaceted world of Sustainable Supply Chain Management. Students are tasked with analyzing various aspects, including green logistics, risk management strategies within supply chains, and the importance of ethical sourcing practices. The aim is to understand how businesses can integrate sustainability principles throughout their supply chain operations for long-term environmental and social responsibility.

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Supply Chain Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The key flows in Supply Chain..................................................................................................2
The Make Process......................................................................................................................5
The supply chain forecasting.....................................................................................................7
Recommendations and Conclusion..........................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Supply chain management deals with the procedures as well as methods involved for
the management of products and services, the flow of the goods from their manufacturing
units to the target consumers, which generally includes the processing of goods, their
distribution procedures and transportation. The supply chain management merges all the
layers along with the decisions related to marketing, desires and expectations of the
customers in relation to the goals and strategies of the organization (Abbasi & Nilsson, 2016).
Amazon Company is being taken as an example for establishing this report on supply
chain management. Started off as an online bookstore, the website now sells diversified
items. Founded in the year 1994, by Jeff Bezos, the industry is now a largest retailer across
the world and second largest after Alibaba, in terms of market capitalization and total
revenue. The company also manufactures electronic items for the consumers like, Kindle e-
readers, Echo, Fire TV and Fire Tablets. They also produce basic products like clothes,
accessories, utensils and more. In the year 2015, the company has been regarded as the most
valuable retailer in terms of market capitalization, at United States (Ahi & Searcy, 2013). The
report highlights the supply chain management processes of the company.
The report throws light on the supply chain management of the industry chosen and
being the supply chain manager of that organization, an analysis is done. It is done on the
effectiveness of the four key flows, the make process and the supply chain forecasting. In
addition to this, the report consists of some recommendations for improvements in the supply
chain processes of the company.

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The key flows in Supply Chain
The strategy of Supply Chain Management of the Amazon Company fits with their
competitive strategy that has been the target consumers’ retailer choice. The combination of
the multi-tier management, superlative transportation, efficient usage of Information
Technology as well as the warehouse’s wider network, has assisted a lot by aligning the
company’s Supply Chain Management as well as their competitive strategies. The other
aspect is related to the company’s outsourcing of its inventory management. The company
implements some strategy for the products which are not frequently purchased by the
consumers or those which requires urgent delivery. They outsource their distribution as well
as storage of items, which also consists of the goods where costs of storage are more than the
marginal returns of sales (Ahi, P., & Searcy, 2015).
Amazon stocks purchased items and frequently ordered products at their warehouses,
which assists them in being responsive towards consumer needs and demands. They hesitate
on compromising the delivery and lead times as well. In other words, segregating inventory
enables the company to respond to their consumers more effectively. Moreover, it helps
Amazon by cutting the costs and slacks where needed. The company differentiates their
consumers and segregates them into segments based on their demands by following certain
strategies of price differentiation (Mangan & Lalwani, 2016). The deliveries are of various
forms, such as first class delivery, one day delivery, super saver or free delivery and prime
customers’ delivery. The company provides its consumers with several options and
alternatives for the available segments. Firstly, the consumers have an option of spending
extra money for receiving their product’s delivery faster. Secondly, they can even depend on
the usual delivery time of the product. Coupled with the inventory outsourcing, customer
segmentation and the price differentiation strategies have helped the company to bear with
the dynamic fluctuations and changes (Awudu & Zhang, 2017).

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Amazon Company’s Supply Chain Management is evolving due to its market growth.
For instance; the company started as an online bookstore and acted as a middleman or
intermediary between the buyers and sellers. The company did not stock their own items.
Gradually, this strategy helped them in holding some of the goods at their warehouses.
Currently, the company is hugely following push and pull strategies. The push strategy is the
inventory and pull strategies include the shipments of all the items. In addition to this, the
company blindly follows pull strategy for the goods they don’t stock. However, the Supply
Chain Management’s discussion is incomplete without their multi tier inventory system’s
analysis. The first tier of the multi inventory system deals with the distribution center’s
aggregation, which enables the company to hold fewer inventories and to respond to the
customer’s demands in a dynamic manner (Barney, 2012).
The second tier consists of the partner distribution centers and the wholesalers as well.
Whenever, an item which is ordered by the consumer, is not available at the enterprise’s
distribution centers, Amazon completely depends on their wholesalers and the partners for
supplying the required products to the customers. Furthermore, by implementing real time as
well as sophisticated strategies of information technology, Amazon can however, leverage
their effectiveness in the distribution. The third or last tier consists of the networks of third
party sellers, manufacturers, publishers and vendors who enable the company to act as a
mediating link for fulfilling the customers’ orders by linking them to the tiers (Beske, Land &
Seuring, 2014).

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Amazon website
Customers
Tier 3
Amazon - DC
Tier 2
Wholesaler -
DC
Partner - DC
Tier 1
Vendor/
Supplier
Publisher
Independent
Supplier
Information Flow
Physical Flow
Figure: Key Flows in Supply Chain
(Source: Created by Author)
The Make Process
Amazon is one of the largest retailers across the world. The company does not only
have plans of growing into biggest logistics’ company but also, they want to revolutionize
other industries. Presently, the company has made some investments in their procedures and
capabilities of supply chain management (Jacobs & Chase, 2013). In near future, they also
have plans for handling sufficient shipments, other than the courier companies as well as
special delivery postal. The company is also planning for building their own streamlined
delivery systems and procedures, which may help in replacing their established specialists. In
addition to this, the company has also signed a deal for expanding their services which may
increase their market profitability (Brandenburg et al., 2014).
Amazon sells their own merchandise to their target customers and also operates in the
market place. The major difference is that the gross merchandise values of the marketplace

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Demand forecast
finished goods
Master Production
Schedule
Assembly
Dispatch
Bill of Materials Inventory file
Materials
requirement
planning
Customer Orders
and the monetary values of all the items, which are being sold on their platform. Moreover,
information technology benefits the manufacturing procedures and processes by reducing
manual work and labor intensive work (Mc Cormack & Johnson, 2016). It also proves
advantageous for the warehouse management. After the completion of the production, the
consumer goods’ manufacturers start packaging their items inside cartons, which is then
delivered to the warehouse of purchasing company. The cargos used for sending the products
to the destinations, first visit the warehouse. It becomes problematic to keep a track of all
those cartons. In addition to this, it is time and labor consuming procedure (Brindley, 2017).
Figure: Planning and Control
(Source: Created by Author)
The implementation of information technology is done in such crisis situations to ease
the procedures as it assists in managing all information and keeping a record of the numbers
of cartons. Every individual unit is installed with tags that help in information storage of the

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warehouse’s computers (Heizer, 2016). At each warehouse’s entrance, reading as well as
writing devices is installed, as it benefits by registering all information of the cargos going in
or out. It becomes easier for management centers for managing a number of products as well
as items, which moves inside and outside the storage system. Furthermore, it acts as a major
segment for the recognition of cargos and sending them to the replacement units whenever
they stop working. The reading as well as writing devices benefits the strategic planning and
management of the location of the products inside the warehouse (Christopher, 2016).
The application of information technology also benefits the distribution procedures of
Amazon. It benefits the company by accelerating their delivery speed to a huge extent. It
increases accuracy and improves efficiency in selecting and distributing procedures as well. It
is advantageous for managing the warehouse, locating the goods is done in an efficient
manner, recording the goods assists in planning of the products’ location more strategically.
Furthermore, it helps in reducing the costs of distribution; along with keeping a track record
of all the goods and items, by registering them at the distribution center’s system (Coyle et
al., 2016).
The supply chain forecasting
Proper forecasting is essential for any organization or industry, as it ensures in having
enough supply in hand, in order to satisfy the demands and desires of the consumers.
Business analysts utilize the systems of logistics and supply chain management as well as
some other tools, in order to forecast the demands in advance. Amazon uses forecasting
techniques to increase the satisfaction of the consumers, reduce the inventory stock outs,
schedule the production effectively, lowering the safety requirements of stocks, reduce
obsolescence costs of products, manage the shipping better, improve price and promote
management (Fawcett, Ellram & Ogden, 2013). This information helps in putting the boxes

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properly and that too in correct locations by sorting them quickly and efficiently. In addition
to this, they are also dispatched to the retailers at less time span and with huge accuracy. It
enables the inventory control’s accuracy, as the products are scanned and registered
automatically on reaching their destination units. Therefore, it highly accelerates the delivery
speed, at the same time improving their efficiency and increasing their accuracy.
Furthermore, it helps in reducing the time and their distribution costs (Dekker et al., 2013).

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Forecast Demand Forecast Supply Forecast Price
Demands and requirements of buyersCurrent Suppliers and ProducersCompilation of Demand and Supply
Consumer Satisfaction
Figure: Forecasting Model
(Source: Created by Author)
The three major forecast types used within supply chain’s context are; demand
forecasting to investigate the demands and requirements of the buyers, supply forecasting to
know about the current suppliers and producers and lastly, the price forecast, which is the
compilation of demand’s and supply’s information. Forecasting abilities of any business
varies from organization to organization. In order to improve the forecasting abilities, one
needs to understand the size of the demands and the uncertainty drivers (Gereffi &
Fernandez-Stark, 2016). The demand planning and strategy needs to be kept simple. The
organizations should always have backup plans as well as change their strategies when
needed. Amazon has been utilizing the forecasting technique in a brilliant way for the

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movement of their supply chain. It utilizes the tags for labeling all the equipments that assist
in tracking and recording the movements easily, keeping it secured and safe. With the
implementation of several technologies, the items are safely stored and tagged (Govindan,
Soleimani & Kannan, 2015).
Previously, the whole activity was done by the security guards. They checked each
and every item’s serial number by matching those with a list, which consisted of the details of
those items. Therefore, supply chain management has proven to be advantageous for the
company, as it helped in lessening the labor costs and time as well. Modern day’s competitive
environment calls for new and innovative measure’s implementation in the supply chain
management of the companies (Green Jr et al., 2012). Each and every company looks out for
innovative ways to improve their own supply chains and its application. They are upgrading
the supply chain systems or even implementing a new one in order to compete with the other
companies. The implementation must be planned and strategically made, keeping in mind the
pros and cons (Grant, Wong & Trautrims, 2017).
Recommendations and Conclusion
In conclusion, some recommendations are made for the improvement of the
company’s supply chain management. Amazon can implement these strategies for making
their supply chain world class and a source of advantage in the competitive field. The
company relies on their courier services to a large extent. Therefore, they can undertake
strategies for creating their own transportation through delivery vehicles and personnel,
which will be advantageous for them. They can also improve their supply chain management
by shifting from the model of cooperation to the coordination mode. In addition to this, it
would enable information sharing between their partners and their suppliers as well, with the
assistance of innovative and latest information technology. This will benefit them by creating

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a unified system of information technology. Therefore, it will call for significant investments
as well as newly modified and innovative business models and strategies; where the company
will not work in isolation; instead it will benefit them by bringing in all necessary as well as
important elements and components for the supply chain management.

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References
Abbasi, M., & Nilsson, F. (2016). Developing environmentally sustainable logistics:
Exploring themes and challenges from a logistics service providers’
perspective. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 46, 273-
283.
Ahi, P., & Searcy, C. (2013). A comparative literature analysis of definitions for green and
sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 52, 329-341.
Ahi, P., & Searcy, C. (2015). An analysis of metrics used to measure performance in green
and sustainable supply chains. Journal of Cleaner Production, 86, 360-377.
Awudu, I., & Zhang, J. (2017). Uncertainties and sustainability concepts in biofuel supply
chain management: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16(2),
1359-1368.
Barney, J. B. (2012). Purchasing, supply chain management and sustained competitive
advantage: The relevance of resource‐based theory. Journal of supply chain
management, 48(2), 3-6.
Beske, P., Land, A., & Seuring, S. (2014). Sustainable supply chain management practices
and dynamic capabilities in the food industry: A critical analysis of the
literature. International Journal of Production Economics, 152, 131-143.
Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J., & Seuring, S. (2014). Quantitative models for
sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European
Journal of Operational Research, 233(2), 299-312.
Brindley, C. (Ed.). (2017). Supply chain risk. Taylor & Francis.

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Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Coyle, J. J., Langley, C. J., Novack, R. A., & Gibson, B. (2016). Supply chain management:
a logistics perspective. Nelson Education.
Dekker, R., Fleischmann, M., Inderfurth, K., & van Wassenhove, L. N. (Eds.).
(2013). Reverse logistics: quantitative models for closed-loop supply chains. Springer
Science & Business Media.
Fawcett, S. E., Ellram, L. M., & Ogden, J. A. (2013). Supply Chain Management: Pearson
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Gereffi, G., & Fernandez-Stark, K. (2016). Global value chain analysis: a primer.
Govindan, K., Soleimani, H., & Kannan, D. (2015). Reverse logistics and closed-loop supply
chain: A comprehensive review to explore the future. European Journal of
Operational Research, 240(3), 603-626.
Grant, D. B., Wong, C. Y., & Trautrims, A. (2017). Sustainable logistics and supply chain
management: principles and practices for sustainable operations and management.
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Green Jr, K. W., Zelbst, P. J., Meacham, J., & Bhadauria, V. S. (2012). Green supply chain
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Heizer, J. (2016). Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.
Jacobs, R., & Chase, R. (2013). Operations and supply chain management. McGraw-Hill
Higher Education.

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Mangan, J., & Lalwani, C. (2016). Global logistics and supply chain management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Mc Cormack, K. P., & Johnson, W. C. (2016). Supply chain networks and business process
orientation: advanced strategies and best practices.