E-Supply Chain Management: Reducing Bullwhip Effect with Technology

This essay examines the role of barcodes and RFID in enhancing warehouse storage and picking processes within e-supply chain management. It highlights how RFID technology complements barcodes to improve operational efficiency, reduce labor costs, increase inventory accuracy, and enhance customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the essay addresses the Bullwhip Effect (BWE), a phenomenon characterized by demand forecast errors, and discusses how technology and effective communication can mitigate its impact by improving alignment and information sharing across the supply chain, ultimately reducing inventory and enhancing overall supply chain smoothness. The reference section provides a list of resources used in the essay.

Running head: E-SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
E-Supply Chain Management
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note

1E-SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Ways barcode and RFID benefits helps in storage and picking of warehousing:
Implementing RFID has developed operational efficiency with productivity in distributing
centers and warehouses of Metacash across the globe. RFID has been complementing technology to
capture data such as barcodes that are used already in distribution centers and warehouses of
Metacash. It reduces labor costs by distributing primary warehouse worker functions (Han, Wang
and Sidén 2015). This includes all the things from inventory for shipping packing and picking to put
away. It also increases the accuracy of the list. This is done by developing precision and efficiency
and ordering and picking accuracy in Metacash. It also reduces stock levels of inventory. This
expands stocks and visibility of demand generation.
Further, it decreases unsalable and items that are out-of-stock. Here, lower levels and leaner
stages of inventory indicate quicker turns of inventory and lesser stagnant amount of stock in
Metacash. Moreiver, customer satisfaction can also be developed. This is done through assuring
proper goods are reaching adequate customer within the right time. Further, receiving items, pallets
and cases have been using barcodes traditionally. The workers have been scanning them one by one.
Having RFIDS, these items are read all at a glance through portal readers (Tucker, Darcy and Stantic
2014). These are placed at dock doors when they get unloaded from a truck. For instance, unloading
any inbound container has been taking and few hours to scan, sort and then count cartons
individually. This has been making less than an hour with the help of packages that are tagged with
RFID. Through WMS any warehouse management systems, items are able to get cross-docked to
store immediately.

2E-SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Bullwhip Effect (BWE) and ways technology are used to eradicate it through
effective communication:
Bullwhip effect is an occurrence that is detected through a supply chain in Metacash. Here
orders are sent to supplier and manufacturer for generating huge variance and sales to end customers.
Here, random laws in a lower part of the supply chain have been developing to be distinct in higher
up in a supply chain. Here, the variance has been interrupting smoothness of supply chain processes,
since every link within the supply chain has been over or underestimating demand of a product. This
results in various types of exaggerated fluctuations (de Almeida et al. 2015).
Here, better alignment across supply chain issues has been both under organizations and
manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and customers in Metcash. Moreover, rests of partners are also
required. Mainly, as suppliers has understood the necessities of customers, they can work in
reducing extra inventory of Metacash. Project portals and suppliers, with EDI transactions and
various additional capabilities of the supply chain management software, are helpful. This BWE can
be eradicated through better forecasts and improved communication. Here, an effective strategy is
used in minimizing bullwhip effect is done with the help of better communication (Dominguez,
Cannella and Framinan 2015). This is done regarding developed connection and better forecasts and
effective supply chain of Metacash. As managers are found to believe that end-user demands are
more predictable than the various demand experienced through factories, they have been attempting
to ignore signals that are sent across a supply chain of Metacash. Instead, they have been
concentrating on the request of end-users. Thus the method has been ignoring regular fluctuations in
favor of the running levels.

3E-SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
References:
de Almeida, M.M.K., Marins, F.A.S., Salgado, A.M.P., Santos, F.C.A. and da Silva, S.L., 2015.
Mitigation of the bullwhip effect considering trust and collaboration in supply chain management: a
literature review. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 77(1-4),
pp.495-513.
Dominguez, R., Cannella, S. and Framinan, J.M., 2015. The impact of the supply chain structure on
bullwhip effect. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 39(23-24), pp.7309-7325.
Han, J., Wang, G. and Sidén, J., 2015. Fragment-type UHF RFID tag embedded in QR barcode
label. Electronics Letters, 51(4), pp.313-315.
Tucker, S., Darcy, P. and Stantic, B., 2014, January. A comparative study of RFID technology
measuring efficiency and acceptance when capturing attendance. In Proceedings of the Thirty-
Seventh Australasian Computer Science Conference-Volume 147 (pp. 75-79). Australian Computer
Society, Inc.