Supply Chain Management: Global Aspects, Trends, and Logistics Report

This report delves into the multifaceted world of supply chain management, emphasizing the significance of lean thinking and agile supply chains in today's competitive business landscape. It covers key aspects such as procurement, logistics, and customer satisfaction, highlighting the importance of global supply chain management and international logistics. The report explores supply chain failures, sustainable supply chain practices, and the lean production paradigm, including agile and leagile supply chain strategies. It further examines lean warehousing, lean inventory management, and the role of logistics in customer relationship management and supplier relationships. The report underscores the need for organizations to understand customer needs, manage risks, and adapt to market changes to achieve competitive advantage and ensure customer satisfaction. The report also touches on reverse logistics and its importance in environmental efficiency.

Running Head: SUPPLY CHAIN
Supply Chain
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Introduction
In the current business world, competition is a daily activity; thus numerous
organizations are striving to reduce ever form of inefficiency from their operations. The supply
chain is one of the organization's operations, and the most commonly used paradigm used in
achieving a competitive advantage is lean thinking and agile supply chain. Supply chain
management entails procurement, distraction, transportation, logistic, outsourcing, demand
management quality management and customer’s satisfaction among many others (Mujkić, Qorri
& Kraslawski, 2018). The following is a report of supply chain management, with focus on the
global aspects, international logistics and emerging trends.
Supply chain
Supply chain refers to different business entities that ensure the flow of resources and
products from different points of production to the consumption point to fulfil the end user’s
needs (Gligor, 2016). On the other hand supply, chain management is part of every organization
management system that has become significant in today's completive business environs. Supply
chain appeared back in 1982 and majorly focused on the logistics management between
organizations. Over the decades it has developed through different stages: functional
management, internal management, and external integration. Supply change management lies on
four major factors: information, customer demand, and time and response strategy for problems
(Gereffi & Lee, 2012). In the current business environment, the success if business depend on the
integration n of the business and the network relationships, thus poor supply chain management
is more likely to lead to supply chain failures . Since the success or failure of the supply chain is
determined by the end consumers. Providing the correct product and the correct cost, at the

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correct moment to the targeted consumers is not a cornerstone to competitive success but also the
vital aspect to existence (Bath & Ozturen, 2013). Therefore, customer’s satisfaction is a key
element in every organization is establishing a proper supply chain strategy. The proper strategy
thus will be only being achieved after understanding the constraints of the marketplace to enable
it to respond to customer demands on time and price quickly. The logistics of providing
consumers with the right product is always complex.
These four factors when well addressed, and then the organization is guaranteed of
customers’ satisfaction, that eventually impacts its competitive advantage in the market place. To
achieve this, every organization’s supply chain thus needs to be agile (Reimann, & Ketchen,
2017). As much as supply chain entails different parties such as suppliers, retailers, wholesalers,
the chain ultimately depends on o the customers. It is significant for all the organizations to
ultimately understand their respective customer's needs since the whole process begins with a
customer order and ends up with customer’s satisfaction.
Supply chain failure
Supply chain failure refers to the probability that part of a supply chain will not
effectively function resulting in malfunctioning of the whole chain. Taherdoost and
Keshavarzsaleh, (2016) denotes that any event in the SC has a direct influence on the firm’s
ability to endure with its manoeuvres in supplying the best product to the customer at the right
time and price. Some of these supply chain failures include bullwhip effect intermediaries
strikes, environmental changes, management and operational failures, political instability, and
changes from customers in the last minute. To avoid these hiccups in the supply chain, current
companies are now focusing on the lean, agile and agile Supply chain strategies. Global

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companies thus need to improve on the supply chain strategies and management goals such as
improving customer’s services and improving product delivery more sustainably (Verbeek,
2018). In this context, organizations thus will aim at reducing the supply chain cost, raising the
efficiency and actively managing all the risk that might arise during the distribution of resources.
To achieve this, numerous global and local companies thus are focusing on the lean production
paradigm (Durach, Kembro & Wieland, 2017).
Global supply chain management
In the current world, business entities face different challenges that affect their supply
chain. Globalization has played a major role in developing numerous organizations and thus
plays a major role in supply chain management (Maltz, 2012). The global supply chain tends to
be complex as companies aspire to satisfy customer’s needs. The complexity in most cases
results in supply chain failure.
Supply chain sustainability
Supply chain sustainability is a new holistic view of supply chain process, management and
logistics to address the environmental, social, legal and economic aspects of the supply chain
components. Sustainable supply chain proposed back in 2007 by Linton and has taken
transformation to other adoption such as green supply chain (Jilani, Ali, & Khan, 2018). Factors
that affect the supply chain include carbon waters emission that pollutes the environment and
affect both the health of workers and society. The new view of supply chains thus requires
supply chain organization to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, and this can be
achieved through various steps:
a) identification of critical issues and improve areas in the entire supply chain

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b) application of the supply chain management’s measurement tools to track progress and
identify wanes
c) the setting of the supply chain objectives concerning the global sustainability goals such a
being carbon neutral
d) strive to collaborate with other sustainable suppliers to help in waste reduction
e) Organizations are required to marinate accountability throughout the process.
Lean production paradigm
Lean production originated from the Toyota Production System that was initiated with a
focus to provide efficient use of resources through level scheduling. Lean refers to the strategy
of developing a value stratum to reduce and eliminating wastes such as time wastes to enhance
customer experience and satisfaction (Chen, 2012). The main goal of the system was to
eliminate all waste during the production system and create customer’s valued products. The lean
was later coined to a better way of managing customer relations in the supply chain. Lean
thinking is quite significant in the global supply chain as the principle enables the delivery of
products that are by the customer’ requirements. The major aim of lean thinking thus is to
transom the supply management form individual operations to collaborative operations that
ensure a perfect flow of products to the end user. Lean supply chain strategies thus should focus
on, quick order booking, wastage reduction; reduce the shipment time and the addition of
product value to suit the end customer (Wang, 2014). The pipeline selection identifies four major
generic supply chain strategies that have the capability of improving the attributes of products
and services: lean; agile, lean and agile.
Agile Supply Chain

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Agility refers to the ability to revolutionize a business involvement into a turbulent place
of competition and struggle for success through detecting the required changes and responding
with all capabilities (Mirabi, Hatami, & Karamad, 2018). An agile supply chain connects both
the company and the market with a focus on the predicted market changes and capitalizing on the
changes to provide fast delivery and lead time flexibility of products to consumers. The agility
deploys different tools such as technology and technological methods to solve the problems.
Leagile supply chain
In vast products, services and markets, the difference in demand, predictability, vitality,
and stability. Due to such existence, companies need the agile supply chain to provide leverage
on both the lean and agile systems. Since the creation of a new supply chain strategy majorly
depends on two aspects: customer satisfaction and the understanding of the market place;
manufactures and supplies are expected to develop strategies that can meet the requirements
(Ciołek, 2016). As the lean focus on the elimination of wastes, while the agile focus on the
market knowledge liability focuses on the adaptation of a supply chain management by changes
in the market. Different technological advancements have facilitated the lean paradigm in supply
chain especially o the global organizations. Some of the advancements entail:
Application of Lean Paradigm is Supply chain management
Lean Warehousing and Distribution Operations
Numerous international organizations depend on warehouse and distribution channels in
ensuring the availability of the product to the destined customers at the right time and quality.
The effective and efficient global economy is significant to attain competitive advantage to these
international organizations. Lean warehousing thus plays a major role in the entire supply chain

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management (Wu, Wang, Li, & Su, 2018). Lean warehousing thus entails the use of facilities
that ensure inbound material logistic and inbound logistic finished product distributions are
interconnected with a seamless flow for the entire stream. Therefore through lean warehousing,
there is an improved product flow that meets customer needs.
Lean inventory management in supply chain
Currently, numerous organizations have embraced the lean inventory management
techniques that aim to improve flexibility, reduce cost and have more time to concentrate on their
customers’ needs are experience. Lean inventory refers to the methodical approach of enhancing
inventory value by identifying and eliminating wastes to pursue perfection in the inventory
process. Lean supply chain inventory management entails the usage of computers and other
computerized software in taking, analysing and processing orders as well as payments of
suppliers and receiving payments from consumers. Computerized chain management has
transformed the current supply chain management of many organizations. Computerising of the
supply chain management allows international organizations to have easy visibility and tracking
of the shipment. The rough the technology, international organizations, have the capability of
having the real time of the movement of the shipment that helps in keeping the customer updated
on the arrival of the orders.
Consequently, the supply chain manager can avoid any supply chain failure that might arise
due to bad weather or poor in futures thus enhancing customer satisfaction. The lean inventory
management thus is built on five major principles of the lean paradigm (Mani, Delgado, Hazen
& Patel, 2017). They are a various attribute of lean inventory management and these are:

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a) Demand management that focuses on providing inventory to customers when requested
thus to be effective, organization need to plan their sales and operations to match the
inventory aspects.
b) Process standardization focus on ensuring that there is a control flow of products and
services irrespective of the potential inhibitors such as poor infrastructure.
c) Industry standardization principle focuses on optimizing the service delivery to enhance
customer satisfaction and experience through reducing the propriety nature of the
products.
d) Cross-enterprise collaboration focuses on the application of teams to aid in defining value
to the end user of a product.
Logistics
Logistic entail all activities performed in an organization and have great implications on
the sustainability and success of the supply chain (Hae, 2016). The following are key activities
where logistics are executed in supply chain management.
Customer Relationship Management-
Process Logistic activities Contributions to supply chain
Customer relationship
management
Helps in providing extensive
information about the
company’s logistics
capabilities and cost, conduct,
and SWOT analysis
The logistics information are
translated into specific
deliverable to help the
management understand the
company's strengthens and
weakness as compared to the

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competitors
Supplier Relationship
Management
Entails supplier logistics costs
and their performance
Help in calculating the total
cost of the ownership
purchases
Customer Service
Management
Define, and measure the
performance of different
indicators offered to
customers and provided an
appropriate procedure of
addressing various issues.
Help in recovering potential
customers
Customer value and Logistics implications
Generally, supply chain logistics requires that every customer needs are met to provide
value and good experience through efficiency and effectiveness of the process. The efficiency
focuses on optimizing resources while the effectiveness focuses on the ability to achieve the
expected target of the set logistics to capture customer needs (Nitsche, 2018). Therefore In the
current competitive supply chain, logistics need to be updated to conform to the customer's
requirements.
Reverse logistics
Reverse logistics refers to the process by which companies become environmentally
efficient through reusing and reducing the amount of material used. The reverse logistics focus
on reducing materials usage through the forward system to allow only fewer material to flow

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back; therefore it should entail the movement of material from the consumption point to the
origin point(Khatri & Dash, 2015). Lean logistics have different components that are: return type
and recovery option.
a. Return type requires that product, m material, and parts be frequently reverted in a cycle
for a different point in the life cycle of the produce of each element. The major return
type is the end of life, commercial return, and use return, and reusable items
b. Recovery options -Recovery options refer to the collection system and strategies, and
each product is collected by the condition of the product. During the process companies,
also focus on extracting value out of the products through assigning an appropriate
recovery method to the returned product. Different reasons that might make a product to
be taken back instead of being thrown away include the ability to be recycled and used as
raw material; for refurbishments and repair; resale for more profits; and to comply with
the experimental regulations.
Supply Chain Emerging Issues
Radio technologies
Radio technology has been one of the current technical aspects used in current supply
chain management. Supply chain managers currently can reduce the anomalies that arise when a
shipments order is in transit. The anomalies during the order transit do not only affect the brands
but also affect the cost of the product when it researcher the final user (Hokey 2016). The
variation and fluctuation resulting from the supply chain anomalies tend to dissatisfy customers;
thus through the RFID, supply chain manager can detect the anomalies and have the best

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corrective measure before the entire supply chain is ruined leading to the dissatisfaction of the
customers.
Social media revolution
In the current world of the Internet of Things, there are about 1.3 billion Facebook users
across the world. With such a large number, it is sensual to business organizations to leverage the
power of social media to enhance supply chain management and operations. Through social
media platforms, supply chain management tends to socialize and keep in touch with the client's
complaints, thus helping in improving the strategy by the customer’s needs. To achieve
maximum competitive advantage in the supply chain, current organization need to mix both the
lean and supply chain; there all the lean principle need to be taken into account. The lean
thinking entails five principles: specify a value by specific product.
a) Identification of the value stratum for every product,
b) Construction of a value flow without interruptions,
c) Organizations should allow customer to pull the value of the products from the
producer
d) Organisation should pursue perfection of all products
International best supply chain practices
Over the past decade, best practices in the lean and supply chain have received significant
attention in the global arena. The best practices include collaboration and certification.
Collaboration behaviours with different stakeholders such as customers and suppliers are key
components of creating a sustainable environment in the supply chain. Jakhar and Barua (2013)
indicate that incentives aid in reducing suppliers risk from engaging in the new collaborative

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process, thus it is upon both the organization and the supplier to have a two-way education.
Consequently, certification requires business organizations to take into account social issues such
as child labour and unsafe working situations in the supply chain process. Therefore companies
that take into account both collaboration and certification in the supply chain managing has a
high probability of responding to the rapidly changing trends that require lower cost and highly
competitive advantage.
Future supply chain management
Due to high digitalization of every aspect of the economy, supply chain management is
bound to transform to the customer requirements. The digitalization thus exposes supply chain to
a faster distribution, more flexible, more granular and more accurate (van Weele & van Raaij,
2014). The future supply chain thus will still benefit from the digitalization in these major
aspects:
Planning
Planning supply chain largely benefits from the big data and advanced analytics that can
analyse thousands of both internal and external variables. The new technologies and machines
enable the supply chain to reduce the forecasting error by 40% thus improving on the accuracy
(Tachizawa & Wong, 2015). The new technology thus will enable to integrate both the closed-
loop demand and supply planning to form a flexible conscious and seamless process of product
movement from the producer to the end user.
Physical flow