Considerations and Challenges in Supply Chain Management Report

This report delves into the intricacies of supply chain management, specifically within the context of Al-Tuwairqi Holding, a Middle Eastern steel manufacturing company. It begins by outlining the key considerations for establishing an effective supply chain, emphasizing strategic objectives, the integration and coordination of internal activities, and the importance of collaboration with both suppliers and customers. The report then identifies and analyzes the challenges the company might face in terms of complexity, including maintaining supplier quality, managing costs, adapting to the growth of e-commerce, and leveraging technology effectively. The analysis stresses the need for a dynamic approach to supply chain management that is tailored to the specific industry and operational needs of the organization. The report concludes by summarizing the critical aspects of supply chain management and the challenges faced by the company.

SUPPLY CHAIN
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Considerations in creating an effective supply chain for a Middle Eastern company.................3
Challenges might the company face in terms of complexity ......................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6
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INTRODUCTION
Supply chain is considered to be a sequence of an organization's, facilities, functions and
activities that are significantly involved in manufacturing and delivering different products or
services (Fawcett Ellram and Ogden, 2014). Supply chain management is referred to the
activities through which the companies can maximize customer value and can also achieve
sustainable competitive advantage. This unit is going to explain some considerations which are
taken for creating an effective supply chain for a Middle Eastern company namely Al-Tuwairqi
Holding which deals in manufacturing of steel. Furthermore, it also represents the challenges
might the company face in terms of complexity in supply chain management.
1. Considerations in creating an effective supply chain for a Middle Eastern company
The major role of manufacturing unit is to create an effective supply chain management
so that to make effective delivery of products to the customers. However, the role of supply
chain management is crucial in each and every industry whether it is a trading industry, industrial
sector, banks or an e- commerce business but they have much different supply chain. Al-
Tuwairqi Holding is a leading business entity of Saudi Arabia and the company offers direct
reduced iron; steel products along with billets, wire rods, reinforcement steel bars, reinforcement
bars, wire meshes, etc (Al Tuwairqi Holding Company, 2016).
In respect to the cited company, Supply chain management has been an encountered
phrase these days, as managers of Al-Tuwairqi Holding strive to improve factory performance.
The major consideration of an organization must be towards a concurrent effort which is used to
manage the each and every aspect of operational activities starting raw material acquiescent to
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delivery products to customers (Carter, and Liane Easton, 2011). In order to create an effective
supply chain Al-Tuwairqi Holding considered following things:
Strategic objectives and tactics : The cited company focuses on designing objectives to
attain the success of the company as it is vital to have targets for attaining future goals. Effective
supply of goods and services is the major objective of business entity that is to be considered
while developing effective supply chain management.
Integrate and coordinate activities in the internal portion of the supply chain:
Throughout the process of supply, there must be effective integration and coordination between
the activities. There must be effective flow of information among the partner who are involved in
different supply chain management activities (Seuring, 2013).
Coordinate activities with suppliers and customers: Coordination among suppliers and
customers is the major concerned area of an organization that must be taken into consideration at
the time of completing supply chain management activities. The suppliers are to be kept
informed for requirements of raw material and the customers should be communicated with
available product with company that can satisfy their needs.
Furthermore, the mentioned company must consider procurement activities for the
purpose of effective supply chain management. Being a manufacturing company, Al-Tuwairqi
Holding has to access the location which is the most suitable for procuring activities. In addition
to that client's demand is the major aspect that is required to be focused on for creating effective
supply chain (Barney, 2012). This is vital the cited company must be static on raw materials and
other finished goods. Al-Tuwairqi Holding need to focus on Product Life cycle Management for
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which the demand and supply of product depends. At last the entity has to focus on forecasting,
planning and managing the each and every activity of supply chain management.
2. Challenges might the company face in terms of complexity
Within a manufacturing company like as Al-Tuwairqi Holding, supply chain
management has a great deal of responsibility to ensure that activities best suits the needs of the
organization. The most crucial responsibility of management is of assessing the suppliers, how
many suppliers are required, storage and warehousing facilities, distribution channels, etc. For
the mentioned company, supply chain activities include all the functions such as product
development, sourcing, production, and logistics, information systems and the interrelation
among them (Carter and Liane Easton, 2011). However, business entity might face some
challenges in regard to effective management of supply chain activities. The most important risk
associated with the supply chain management is of maintaining supplier quality and performance
in the operations of business. For the cited company, quality of product is the key concern,
therefore, it is to be considered during the supply chain management (Wisner, Tan and Leong,
2015). In addition, the risk related to supply chain also lead to increase the cost of production
that further turn into increased prices.
The mentioned entity also focuses on reducing inventory and transportation costs. In
present era, the growth of e- commence is witnessed and number of customers want to have
quality products so the business entity has to maintain quality of products. The unrealistic
assumption of demand and supply can also be the challenge of manufacturing unit for
maintaining effective flow. In lack of advanced technology, the business will not able to
manages the supply chain activities however, the implementation of technology continue to
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create the cost of the businesses. Hence, the needs to understand the entire picture of the
information technology to determine how best to use it to suit the needs of the organization and
make the supply chain more efficient (Supply Chain and Manufacturing Operations Consulting,
2016). However, Al-Tuwairqi Holding wants to develop supply chain that will depend on the
industry and the operations of organization. The culture of organization can become a major
challenge for business in managing internal and external strategies pertaining to supply chain
management. The stakeholders of business who are associated with the supply chain activities
need to be communicated effectively so that there must not be any problem in managing supply
chain.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that different companies have their different
supply chain activities that depends on their businesses types. It can be said organization must
put efforts towards managing each and every aspect of operational activities hence, it should
consider proper integrate and coordinate activities with suppliers and customers in of the supply
chain. Maintaining supplier quality and performance, increased cost etc. are the challenges
associated with Al-Tuwairqi Holding's supply chain management
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REFERENCES
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),
pp.3-6.
Carter, C.R. & Liane Easton, P. (2011). Sustainable supply chain management: evolution and
future directions. International journal of physical distribution & logistics
management, 41(1), pp.46-62.
Fawcett, S.E., Ellram, L.M. & Ogden, J.A. (2014). Supply chain management: from vision to
implementation. London: Pearson.
Hugos, M.H. (2011). Essentials of supply chain management (Vol. 62). John Wiley & Sons.
Seuring, S., (2013). A review of modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain
management. Decision support systems, 54(4), pp.1513-1520.
Wisner, J., Tan, K.C. &Leong, G. (2015). Principles of supply chain management: a balanced
approach. Cengage Learning.
Online
Al Tuwairqi Holding Company. (2016). [Online]. Avaliable through:
<https://www.zawya.com/company/profile/1001991/Al_Tuwairqi_Holding_Company/>.
[Accessed on 12th April 2016].
Supply Chain and Manufacturing Operations Consulting. (2016).[Online]. Avaliable through:
<http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/operations/solutions/supply-chain-and-
manufacturing-operations-services.html>. [Accessed on 11th April 2016].
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