Professional Project 1: Supply Chain Management on Food Industry

This professional project delves into the intricacies of supply chain management within the Australian food industry, aiming to identify strategies for achieving higher overall growth and productivity. The research explores the competitive landscape, consumer trends, and the importance of food security. It focuses on the application of supply chain management techniques from raw materials to final products. The project involves primary data collection through interviews with managers from food service organizations, alongside secondary research utilizing journals, books, and other resources. The research questions focus on identifying effective supply chain management techniques. The literature review examines existing research on food supply chain management, highlighting gaps and potential directions for future research. The project also considers the impact of external factors such as climate and labor costs. It acknowledges corporate social responsibility and the need for ethical practices in the food supply chain. The research aims to analyze and evaluate the answers, and come up with the most repeated feedback which is assumed to be the voice of the majority and believed to be accurate and reliable.

Running Head: PROFESSIONAL PROJECT 1
Supply Chain Management on Food Industry
Name;
Institution;
Date;

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Introduction
Australia being an agro-Based economy has the agricultural sector providing
job opportunities for approximately more than half of the citizens and the entire country’s
population. Hill, C. A., & Scudder, G. D. (2012). The Australian food market is very competitive
as there are many players in the industry. By the change of consumer trends through household
demographics, personal desires, technological advancements and customs, the food sellers and
other agricultural product providers respond to long-term shifts. Food security has grown into
recognition and consideration and is now an established issue for the whole food industry and the
globe in general. By definition, food security encompasses going through a proper and sensible
evaluation of food security considerations as well as putting into account possible calamities that
may arise to the Australian people. This is a situation that comes along when everybody, every
time has the best access to adequate, proper and nutritious food that matches their diet
requirements to live healthy and recommendable lives.
Supply chain management encompasses both supply and materials management
from the available unfinished goods to the final products. It focuses on how various enterprises
manage their providers’ procedures, technologies and the ability to provide an advantage in
competition with other partners. Beulens, A. J. (2011). It always extends the original intra-
organizational activities by encouraging business partners together, all geared towards achieving
a similar goal. Supply chain management focuses on the external environment in any given
organization.

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Field of research.
This research will enable me to apply my knowledge as this topic will provide
me additional know-how and techniques to gather the most accurate and correct information
concerning food supply chain management. Interacting with different managers from various
food providing organizations will provide a clear understanding of the field and all it entails
bearing in mind that this is a very delicate sector which everyone should have a proper and clear
knowledge of. From the marketing point of view, I will have the opportunity to interview the
managers directly without fear to get to know what has already been done as far as food service
industry is concerned and what is yet to be accomplished. Data will also be collecting food
production journals, magazines, books and other secondary materials. Media will also be
involved when gathering the information.
Observation, face to face interviews and questionnaires will also be in use
to ease the process of gathering the information from the target population. A sample size of 20
managers who run food service organizations will represent the overall target population through
answering of various questions, both orally and through writing in the questionnaires.
Research Questions/Aims/Hypothesis
With the main objective or aim of the research project being the determination
of the supply chain management activities which enable the food provision to acquire and
achieve higher overall growth and productivity, below is the research question which will enable
the researcher acquire the required information; ‘Which Supply chain management techniques on
food industry enables you to achieve your targets of achieving higher overall growth and
productivity?’. After getting various answers, the researcher will be in a position to analyze and

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evaluate the answers and come up with the most repeated feedback which is assumed to be the
voice of the majority and believed to be accurate and reliable.
Search terms
The most important and key terms in this research project include; food supply chain
management, growth, and productivity. Food supply chain management is defined as that
composition of both supply and utilization of various raw materials from the available unfinished
goods to the final products. The actual implementation is also put into consideration.
Literature review.
Very many researchers have done a lot concerning food supply chain management. The
main concern here is to determine the nature of the investigation in supply chain management
and actually what really would encompass the sector of supply chain management as one of the
management fields in the industry. This research was developed specifically highlight the
possible unattended gaps in the business and giving out the possible ways and directions for the
accomplishments as well as consolidating current education. On the view that supply chain
management is a discipline by itself, it should, therefore, start as a fully pledged sector just like
marketing. There is a real need in any sector of research, more so the social one to give the
inclusive components of the subject.
The origin of supply chain management practices spans from work life conflict
experienced by employees and the customers when the demand surpasses the supply. Lambert,
D. M., Cooper, M. C., & Pagh, J. D. (2014). This can be seen as the inter-role conflict that results
when one or more customers feel incompatible with the other areas such as being a spouse,
parents, personal issues, etc., with what they cannot have regardless of the capacities and ability
to buy attached to them. The concept of supply chain management recognizes that most

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individuals have multiple roles. It helps minimize the amount of conflict that may arise between
the suppliers and the customers and also target antecedents.
Food supply chain management has various management similar terms which focus on the
same issue, and they include; connectivity sources, management of pipeline supply, quality
stream management and finally the value chain management. All the value management have
been of great concern to many researchers and both developing and the developed organizations.
A lot of investors have majored on the food industry as it is the leading in every economy
globally. The supply chain is and should always be viewed as the central unit in any market as
far as competitive advantage and analysis are concerned. Georgiadis, P., Vlachos, D., & Iakovou,
E. (2009)
My concern with the finding of the information is focused on the primary capturing of
information with the application of primary empirical-descriptive mechanisms. Bearing in mind
that the development of a stable and competitive supply chain management has the basic
requirement of a more detailed and aggressive research topic, primary sourcing would not
provide all the required information, and thus secondary references have not been left out.
Journals, magazines, books, internet and other materials will help provide accurate data which
will be directly compared to the first-hand information.
Many thriving companies may not necessary be focused to improve the sales or other
reduce the production costs nor realize high amount of profits but would rather be driven towards
promoting the whole supply chain management as an industry by itself since it is the backbone of
any organization as well as the determinant factor both for the success and failure of the entire
business. Cooper, M. C. (2010). Scientifically a development of a stable food supply chain

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management needs various developments and procedures which should normally be adjusted to
enhance the realization of theoretical models to ease the understanding of the entire phenomenon
of food supply chain management.
There is an economic pressure brought about by the households which intend to purchase
foods for their consumption from home. The suppliers tend to neglect and ignore households
purchasing with the notion that they can’t reach the level of buying in a lump sum after which
they go to retailers and wholesalers and make the purchases. Doukidis, G. (2010). Balancing the
supplies by the food supply chain managers will always remain difficult as far as they don't wish
to recognize the individual buyers who exercise impulse buying. Nevertheless, most of the
grocery producers have majored on the individual buyers at the expense of the organizations
buying in bulk to keep in touch and connected to their customers. They always have the
knowledge to maintain an equilibrium in supply such that the overall demand is equal to the
supply hence enhancing a perfect market competition with other firms producing the same food
products. Pagell, M., & Wu, Z. (2009).
There is also noticeable competition between the local and international food suppliers in
Australia. Most of the domestic suppliers have been outdone by the foreigners from overseas
especially in the dairy sector (cheese and butterfat), meat, cereals, and animals. A high
proportion of approximately 31% of the exports goes unprocessed as a result of unfavorable
competition from the outsiders who tend to convince the local buyers to mostly focus on the
imports market Müller, M. (2008). Much of the growth of imports has manifested itself as the
processed foods ready for human consumption. Other factors which need to be examined for
they have affected Australia's basic trade in food products include the inadequacy in the

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production of the vital goods as a result of poor climatic conditions, a factor that has led to the
deterioration of the dairy industry, not forgetting the grain and the wine industry. The volatile
situation also being created in the readily available beef cattle. Secondly, there is the increasing
realization of labor at low cost resulting in less food production hence affecting the Australian
fresh and processed food products negatively.
Both Maloni, M. and Brown, M emphasized on corporate social responsibility in the supply
chain of food management and acknowledged that good business ethics should be noticeable to
all the players in this industry. They also believe that of all the industries, food and agribusiness
are the most crucial one which needs much of the attention. Brown, M. E. (2010).In this
research, there will be high lecturer engagement who will provide the necessary materials and
knowledge on where to begin the exercise. Guidance on some issues also needs the presence of a
lecturer.
Because this research study requires voluntary human participation, the researcher is
needed to conform to professional standards of conduct. The study required the approval of each
participant as well as the written and verbal acknowledgment that their responses would be kept
confidential. Their physiological and psychological comfort would be considered in all aspects
of the focus group and interview sessions, allowing the researcher to balance their research needs
while respecting the needs of the participants. The respondents will be briefed about the nature of
the study and reminded that they could as much or as little about any given task. All the collected
data will be analyzed systematically by choosing the most common responses as the accurate
ones. There will be the elimination of those respondents who may seem not to be serious with the
exercise.

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References
Bourlakis, M. A., & Weightman, P. W. (Eds.). (2008). Food supply chain management. John
Wiley & Sons
Cooper, M. C., Lambert, D. M., & Pagh, J. D. (2011). Supply chain management: more than a
new name for logistics. The international journal of logistics management, 8(1), 1-14.
Ellram, L. M., & Cooper, M. C. (2010). Supply chain management, partnership, and the shipper-
third party relationship. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 1(2), 1-10.
Georgiadis, P., Vlachos, D., & Iakovou, E. (2009). A system dynamics modeling framework for
the strategic supply chain management of food chains. Journal of food
engineering, 70(3), 351-364.
Hill, C. A., & Scudder, G. D. (2012). The use of electronic data interchange for supply chain
coordination in the food industry. Journal of Operations Management, 20(4), 375-387.
Lambert, D. M., Cooper, M. C., & Pagh, J. D. (2014). Supply chain management:
implementation issues and research opportunities. The international journal of logistics
management, 9(2), 1-20.
Scott, C., & Westbrook, R. (2011). New strategic tools for supply chain
management. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics
Management, 21(1), 23-33.
Kelepouris, T., Pramatari, K., & Doukidis, G. (2010). RFID-enabled traceability in the food
supply chain. Industrial Management & data systems, 107(2), 183-200
Maloni, M. J., & Brown, M. E. (2010). Corporate social responsibility in the supply chain: an
application in the food industry. Journal of business ethics, 68(1), 35-52.
Seuring, S., & Müller, M. (2008). From a literature review to a conceptual framework for
sustainable supply chain management. Journal of cleaner production, 16(15), 1699-1710.
Sheffi, Y. (2001). Supply chain management under the threat of international terrorism. The
International Journal of Logistics Management, 12(2), 1-11
Stank, T., Crum, M., & Arango, M. (2009). Benefits of interfirm coordination in food industry
supply chains. Journal of business logistics, 20(2), 21.
Pagell, M., & Wu, Z. (2009). Building a complete theory of sustainable supply chain
management using case studies of 10 exemplars. Journal of supply chain
management, 45(2), 37-56.
Van der Vorst, J. G., van Dijk, S. J., & Beulens, A. J. (2011). Supply chain design in the food
industry. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 12(2), 73-86.