Cornell Note: Comparative Analysis of Supply Chain Strategies

This assignment presents a Cornell Note summarizing three articles related to supply chain management. The first article discusses "bandit" supply chains, particularly in the mobile phone industry, highlighting the cost advantages and quality improvements achieved by firms engaging in such practices. The second article focuses on demand forecasting in military operations, emphasizing the challenges in predicting demand due to factors like data maintenance and system complexities. It introduces mission-based forecasting and condition-based maintenance (CBM) as potential solutions. The third article examines supply chain agility, defining it as a critical factor for customer effectiveness and noting its dependence on industry stability, with stable companies employing complex processes and unstable ones relying on simpler, experiential methods. The note concludes that supply chain processes vary across industries, with agility being a key determinant of customer service.

Running head: CORNELL NOTE
Cornell Note
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1CORNELL NOTE
Cornell Notes
Lecture, reading/chapter/novel/article
during class, power point, movies (if need
to collect info.)
Topic:____________________
_________________________
Main Ideas:
Name: ___________________________________________________
Date: ____________________________
Notes:
Bandit
supply chain (Article 1)
 Bandit products are mainly captured in Asian
countries like China1.
 Upstream firm focus on the quality of the upstream
firm and downstream firm emphasizes on price of
those products1.
 Mobile phones are the topmost bandit products since
20017 in China and the annual capital is nearly $20
billion1.
 The reason for the mobile phone industry to grow in
bandit supply chain is that mobile manufactures does
not have to spend cost for giving fair share in taxes
(free riding) and they just focus on simple external
designs along with manufacturing processes1.
 MediaTek Incorporation (MTK) formulates a turn-
key processor and software accompanied together1.
 Bandit supply chain enhances the performance of
mainstream firm as in order to compete with smaller
mobile company, they intend to focus on product’s
quality1.
 However, due to lesser supply chain cost, bandit
products also give value to improve their product’s
quality1.
Demand forecasting
(Article 2)
 The military operations, demand forecasting is done
by emphasizing on customer-service performance.
 Well-defined and highly refined manufacturing
process drives the commercial supply chain; however,
well-defined process for manufacturing and multi-
echelon network distribution system defines the
military supply chain2.
1 Li, Meng, Suresh P. Sethi, and Jun Zhang. "Competing with bandit supply chains." Annals of Operations Research 240.2
(2016): 617-640.
2 Parlier, Greg H. "Mission-Based Forecasting: Demand Forecasting for Military Operations." Foresight: The International
Essential Question:

2CORNELL NOTE
 The main products in military supply chain are
consumable repair parts and depot-level reparables2.
 This supply chain process also performs the operation
of distributing repair-part products and offer
maintenance support after the delivery2.
 The reason for not being able to forecasting the
demand in military products is readiness equation
relating labor and capital investment, numerous work-
around along with inadequate knowledge and
unidentified complexities in management information
systems2.
 Another reason for military supply chain problem is
that poor maintenance of data for spares replaced and
repair parts2.
 Type of weapon system, environmental conditions,
geographic location, system parameters and category
for training or operational mission are five factors
through which mission-based forecasting can be
obtained2.
 Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is introduced
for collecting digital signal and lifetime of the used
spare products so that the parts that are nearing the
end of useful life can e replaced for executing
uninterrupted mission2.
Agility in supply chain
(Article 3)
 Customer effectiveness is closely defined through
strategic supply chain management, which on the
other hand related with agility of the process3.
 Agility of the supply chain can be obtained through
rapid reconfiguration of the products and elimination
of the waste product3.
 Agility of the supply chain also depends on the type
of industry. Stable company has complicated and
detailed analytic processes are present but in an
unstable organization, simple and experiential
methods are used3.
 Reacting effectively to changing market is attained
from the agility of the supply chain3.
 Agility in the supply chain is noticed in case of
Journal of Applied Forecasting 43 (2016).
3 Gligor, David M., Carol L. Esmark, and Mary C. Holcomb. "Performance outcomes of supply chain agility: when should you
be agile?." Journal of Operations Management 33 (2015): 71-82.

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volatile demand, complex customer requirements and
high variety characteristics in terms of product3.
 Uncertainty in supply chain process that define agility
comprises of three factors- dynamism, munificence,
and complexity3.
Summary:
The process of supply chain in every industry varies depending on the process of the
operations the organization performs. It is found that due to the ease of availability
of mobile circuits along with software, mobile marketers face ease in doing business
with bandit supply chain. On the other hand, in military supply chain, it is difficult to
predict the customer demand as the products is not purchased by all customers and
the parts need repayment rather than purchasing a new one. Lastly, in any business,
customer effectiveness is measures based on the fast service of the supply chain
known as agility. Moreover, the agility varies based on the type of the business that
is the stable the organization is, the complex its supply chain process and lesser is
the agility. On the other hand, the most unstable an organization, the supply chain
process is more agile due to simple and experiential methods.

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Reference List
Gligor, David M., Carol L. Esmark, and Mary C. Holcomb. "Performance outcomes of supply chain
agility: when should you be agile?." Journal of Operations Management 33 (2015): 71-82.
Li, Meng, Suresh P. Sethi, and Jun Zhang. "Competing with bandit supply chains." Annals of Operations
Research 240.2 (2016): 617-640.
Parlier, Greg H. "Mission-Based Forecasting: Demand Forecasting for Military Operations." Foresight:
The International Journal of Applied Forecasting 43 (2016).