Operations Management: Cowboy's Supply Chain Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Cowboy Company's supply chain and logistics operations. It begins with an introduction to supply chain management and its key components, emphasizing the flow of goods and information. The report then delves into the challenges faced by Cowboy Company, including response time, cost control, planning and risk management, and supplier relationships. It examines quality issues, such as conformance, unstructured performance, efficiency, product design, and process design problems. The report further explores inventory management issues, supply chain information system problems, and production capacity issues. It concludes by discussing the potential impacts of disruptive changes, including artificial intelligence, technology development, and shifting geopolitical alignments, on the supply chain. The report also includes a detailed discussion of the production facility layout, supplier management and logistics issues, and provides justifications for the design produced.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Analysis of Cowboy’s Supply chain and Logistics
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Challenges in the supply chain management and logistics of the organisation.........................3
Quality issues related to the organisation...................................................................................4
Inventory management issues throughout the supply chain for the organisation....................10
Supply chain information system issues on the organisation and supply/value chain.............10
Production capacity issues on the organisation and supply chain............................................12
Impacts of of disruptive change, Artificial Intelligence (AI) on shifting geo-political power
and alignments on the supply chain.........................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Supply chain management means an active management of all the activities that
constitute the supply to the customer in an effective manner. These activities should be in
such a manner that it maximizes customers value and ensures a sustainable competitive
advantage. It implies the cumulative efforts of all the firms in running the supply chain in the
best way possible. It covers wide area extending from product development to sourcing,
marketing to production, logistics. To bind all these areas a communication and coordination
system is a must. The two major aspects that a supply chain must consider is that, first, the
product which reaches its consumer properly because at each stage an organisation handled it
sincerely and then forwarded to the next organisation to accomplish their part of work which
forwarded to the next and so on till its feached its end user. Second is that all chain activities
should be well coordinated and each one should pay equal attention to their co-organisers to
ensure effective supply.
The better way to explain how the supply chain is linked is to study it in two
categories. One is physical flow and the other one is information flow:
Physical flow: It include the movement of the goods, material from one level to the other
level. The movement, handling, storage, delivery all are an important part of supply chain.
Any negligence at any stage may lead to degradation in the quality of the product. This may
further lead to loss in terms of money or one may loose their customer or their trust.
Information flow: Information flow is of utmost importance in a supply chain. Information
flow includes communication among all the firms associated with the supply chain. It allows
ease of work and also maintains a systematic order of all the works. Also this way of
information flow helps in delivering the given product on time.

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This article will discusses the layout of the production facility to produce the product,
supply management and logistics issues on the organisation and supply/value chain, quality
issues on the organisation, production capacity issues on the organisation and supply chain,
inventory management issues throughout the supply chain for the organisation, supply chain
information system issues on the organisation and supply/value chain, the potential impacts
of disruptive change, Artificial Intelligence (AI), technology development (for example, 3D
Printing and the rise of micro-factories), the ‘circular economy’, and shifting geo-political
power and alignments on the supply/value chain and provides justification on the design
produced earlier.
Challenges in the supply chain management and logistics of the organisation
The effective management of supply chain drives a company towards its success. The
challenges in logistics and supply chain depends upon the complexity of the business.
Following are some difficulties that Cowboy Company can face in their operations:
 Response time: Complexity of the supply chain pertains to sophisticated transactions
and communications because it involves various buyers, partners and suppliers. This
increases the manual processes and connections resulting in hindrance of the supply
chain affecting its growth, maintenance and improvement.
 Cost control: The increasing trend in healthcare costs, technological equipments,
global customers, labour rates, commodity prices has bring the operations costs under
pressure. Maintaining such issues can be troublesome depending upon the size of the
supply chain and especially when the participants and resources involved are from
various parts of the world.
 Planning and risk management: Risks are always associated with supply chain
which creates loopholes. For instance, forecasts cannot be predicted precisely, there
can be delays in shipments and breakdowns can also occur in technologies and

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vehicles. Furthermore, marketplace changes, shipment protections, outsourcing, asset
retaining, offshoring etc. also adds to the risks in supply chain of the organisation.
Hence, these risks should be identified and evaluated for effective management.
 Supplier/partner relationship management: The strategies to be developed requires
full participation of all the workers and associates for an effective supply chain.
However, there are many divisions and departments inside an organisation which
works on different parameters which can create conflicting objectives. So, it is very
important to consider the whole operations as a single unit and establish common
standards and objectives. Trusts should be build up amongst the associates and the
supply chain should be strategize according to goals and objectives.
Quality issues related to the organisation
Quality management is a major factor that drives the business growth. Organisation
should not only focus on the quality of the product but also the quality performance of each
and every processes involved in supply chain and logistic network. Following are the quality
issues that the Cowboy Company should consider while setting up the factory:
 Conformance problems: It is a situation in which a system is not performing well
from the standpoint of product users. The main feature of this problem is that there is
a distinct right way of doing activities which can be easily diagnosed to know where
the processing activities or inputs have deviated from the norms. Strong standards can
be developed to easily identify and solve conformance problems. These problems can
arise from manual mishandling, which are the results of unmotivated employees.
 Unstructured performance problem: An unstructured performance problem is the
scenario when task in its non standardized form not specified as per requirements or
needs is not performed accordingly. Poor performance impact customers or to the
organization by incremental cost or by reduction of cost. But hallmark of UPP says

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poor performance procedure or the system is not systematic and is not as per rules or
requirements.
Sales indicates about unsatisfied performance with respect to system of sales.
As there is no correct way out of selling product in that case shortfalls in sales is not
possible to get cured through standards enforcement that is not brought into existence.
Work related to knowledge should not be standardized in case tasks include
judgement or creativity. Most f the services related activities are not considered to be
standardized as they should be adopted for being fit in various circumstances and as
per requirements of customers.As they are related to the issue of performance , causes
of performance issue becomes very complex while solving of UPP. UPP do result due
to various reasons. Rest of the tasks are equal in challenge. Identification of issue can
be very complex . Even if one does know about the reason of UPP it becomes
impossible to produce effective solution to the issue.If the clients rejects for ad
agency’s proposals due to non-creative one then the agency does not get any way out
for coming up with any such offerings that shall be more and more appealing. As
performance which are unstructured are very diverse then the most important tool to
solve is analysis where there should e creative thinking about the scenario. Various
strategies get also to be meaningful to be used. Provision for incentives do motivate
people in finding out solutions
 Efficiency problems: In terms of quality movement it is rarely recognized that as
quality is defined as per satisfaction of customer needs Juran’s “fitness for use”
becomes an example where various quality improvement activities are for cost
reduction as well as for improvement of worker safety. Apparent paradox gets
resolved through adoption of stakeholder perspective on the basis of quality , by
viewing product quality for interests of various stakeholders being company owners,

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managers as well as employees. Problems with respect to efficiency reflects broad
perspective of quality as the situations where interests of the stakeholders are not
satisfied. Cost as well as productivity concerns are issues as of this type and therefore
name of the category. In case of complex problem of efficiency while outputs of well
specified system are accepted to users then the performance of the system do not
achieve internal goals of the organization. Setting of goals becomes a challenge with
the issues of efficiency as it is difficult to analyze level of performance. Even when
opportunities get discovered then there is the challenge of bringing about changes for
capturing efficiencies with not incurring any losses. A large number of customer
complaints related to incorrect filled orders suggests that this cannot be the way for
reducing costs.
Efficient identification for efficient issues depends upon involvement of
worker. Employees of the organization are most valuable resource for identification of
ways in cost reduction as well as for safety improvement. Solving of problem can
adopt several strategies in the form of focusing on certain cost items, reduction in
input cost, elimination of unnecessary activities as well as outputs, improvement in
inputs as well as activities , increase in outputs assuming about these can be sold in
order to exploit economies of scale. Implementation of these strategies d require
analysis of all the inputs as well as outputs for processes of the organization. Care
must be taken to related trade offs and should be managed properly.
 Product design problems: In case of performance problems situations existing
system is not performing as expected. Improvement in quality related activities also
do reveal about problems and the situations when new system should be either created
or should be revised. Product design related problems require fror creation of system
or artifact that satisfied the requirements. These concerns are quite familiar in terms of

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competitive and technology driven industries. Many organizations do have
development departments for product where design of product work includes more
and more participants. One of the major tasks is determination of requirement,
identification of needs of the user as well as other demands that must be satisfied.
Deployment of quality function is the contribution of quality movements to
endeavour. The top down process starts with high level generation of design concepts.
A concept is selected for development for elaboration into several components as well
as subcomponents until and unless a detailed design specification for artefact is
accepted.
Product design involves reason being the contribution for many people as
design should include many considerations that shows different areas of expertise.
Product should be reliable, maintainable, repairable as well as disposable. Such
considerations gave rise” designing for” techniques or methods beings majorly
heuristics collection. Analysis of value is a technique for reducing cost of product is
design for method of cost being same to manufacturing design, reliability design as
well as other procedures and methods.
Design of the product being effective reach beyond the requirements of the
customer as customer always do not know what they need and what they should have
in order to consider the total context of product for use and environment that can be
expected to encounter in the life cycle. More and more competition and more faster
way of innovation in case of several industries has brought about motivation for
companies to reduce the product design process.
The movement with respect to quality being traditional concern that product
can satisfy requirements of the customer led to the quality improvement related
activities in order to address issues related to product design. Other fields being

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engineering have produced more important advances with respect to methodology of
product design.
 Process design problems: A procedure is said to be set of activities for achievement
of goal. Design related process is the work for carrying out processes in order to
achieve goals. As per argument if processes are correctly designed then there should
be very few issues of any type. Several performance related problems or issues can be
found out for inadequacy processing so n that case two kinds of issues being
performance as well as design relate to process are found to e blended. Nickol’s
category for task improvement shows this kind of relationships.
Except production activities which are physical , companies got to ignore
their internal processes. Inadequacies with respect to processes could be identified
being the impact for serious performance related issues. During past 20 years the
movement with respect to quality has got to be changed over thinking. It has brought
about increased awareness of the management for organizational processes bringing
bout design related to process as well as improvement in present requirements for
success of the organization. In case of process design identification related to issues
are brought the definition of problem will become as a challenge. Efficient activity
shows how existing process operates as well as how comparable functions are
performed in several organizations and the procedures that act as possibilities to be
created through advancement of technologies.
Along with products work related to design becomes most critical and
complex activity in case of processing problem solving related to design. As
processes have to finish up with its time dimensions that lacks wit product in that
case, design related to process parallels flow of te process and is not so top down than
the design of the product. There became the danger for being trapped in past days for

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doing the things as per match by risk of reinvention of the wheel or bringing about
revolutionary new process that could not even work out.
The flowchart helps most of the processes of design related activities. It is a
means through which existing processes are represented. Benchmarking allows to get
knowledge and idea about processes of the organizations. The movement related to
quality has developed for collection of process of design related tools as process
analysis that helps in analyzing and improving of existing procedures. This particular
approach has been criticized through proponents of reengineering which makes to be
more and more radical starting from strategy of scratch design. The virtues related to
design of processes methods are not withstanding or improvement related to processes
do result from heuristics. Such prices of advice get existence related to all aspects of
process, process fow as well as lyout, screening of input as well as control, handling
of exception , task assignment as well as scheduling, coordination a well as
consolidation of all activities , triggers of process as well as handling of interruptions
and also delays. Traditionally service could not be initiated until and unless Bell
required billing and various information. This kind of trigger could be safe from legal
point of view and could make things more easy for accountants of Bell. With this
group of customers there came to be little risk for non-payment. As a result, in the
process of redesigning service got to be connected in case of being technically
possible and billing information could be gathered after then. As the past trigger
related to initiation of service was more safe the new trigger got to be making the
process as well as the company more responsive to the needs of customer.
The five kinds of problems related to quality was described where it was
identified through research project and has got to analyze many published cases related
to the issue of quality in case of organizations. Practitioners can attempt to resolve

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quality related issues that will benefit from being aware of these kinds of issues. They
will e more and more recognizing key issues solving the tasks through different
situations they face and they will also be able to select appropriate tools related to tasks
as well as techniques. Keeping in mind about various types of issues related to quality
will help out practitioners to access wealth of heuristic knowledge as problem solving
to quality issues. This kind of knowledge is considered to be most valuable and as an
available resource for resolving problems related to the quality of real world.
Inventory management issues throughout the supply chain for the organisation
 Supply chain complexity: globalisation has impacted the complexity of the supply
chain. large network of distributors, retailers, manufactures and suppliers is required
to sell, source and distribute the products which has can arise the following stock
management difficulties:
a. Longer and less reliable lead times
b. Difficulties in tracking the inventory
c. Optimising and tracking issues in warehouses
 Stock outs and high backorders related to products which are in demand
 Increase no. of stock related to items which are in less demand or slow moving items
 Poor forecasting capabilities
Supply chain information system issues on the organisation and supply/value chain
Logistics, operational and strategic issues have mainly got the attention in the
management of supply chain and less emphasis is given to security of information flow in the
supply chain. Information system security is necessary for the smooth functioning of the
supply chain as well as for building relationship and maintaining a competitive edge.

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Following are the issues that the Cowboy Company should look into while setting up their
project:
 Infrastructural issues: The structure of organisation largely influences the flow of
information. Hierarchical structures are easy to control while today’s trend is more of
a flat organization as well as matrix organisation. However, irrespective of the
structure, technological sophistication, breaches and disruptions can be found
everywhere. Learning orientation, flexibility and responsiveness of the employees to
the disruptions in information flow also affects the functioning of the supply chain.
Furthermore, Human factor is very important for securing the information flow. They
had to be trained regarding the technological advancements. Well-developed
mechanisms should be incorporated for better information sharing and promoting
inter-organizational learning across the organisation.
 Strategy development issues: A well-developed strategy has be implemented for
securing the flow of information in an organisation. It not only diversifies the Supply
Chain Information Strategy (SCIS) but also bridges the gap between the various
organization’s strategies. Finances is considered as one of major factors that affects
the implementation and development of the strategy for SCIS. Apart from that,
governmental regulations, procedures and infrastructure of organisations, organisation
size and culturally setting also affects the SCIS strategy.
 Local Protocol issues: These are the issues that are local to the organisations.
Finances again forms a part of the organisation’s local settings with respect to debt
service, Return-on-investment (ROI), cash flows etc. in addition to this, accounting
standards widely differs from region to region. Local cultural practices are also likely
to affect the security of the organisation. The management and practice of information
security largely depends on the agenda of ‘trusting no one’. However, this attitude