I have read an article named ‘The New Supply Chain Challenge: Risk Management in a Global Economy’ by FM global through internet and try to relate those challenges with Bangladesh footwear activities. It seems, many of them is not aware about those challenges or many of them aware on it but failed to calculate real cost, thereby reduce their company’s revenue, market share, send them over budget, threaten production and finally damage their credibility to buyer whereas they may have taken lot of activities on quality control, lean manufacturing, FIFO, just in time inventory or any other world’s best business strategies to minimize cost and concentrate on core competencies.
This is fact that, we are now living in a world where the largest shoemaker does not produce shoes, they only design and sells them. We are not living in that period when big companies or manufacturer has all their backward linkage industry under one roof or premises. Now everyone is ‘global’, so they think and source from global and that is a risk on supply chain. A study by Georgia Institute of Technology Professor Vinod Singhal and University of Western Ontario Associate Professor Kevin Hendricks have calculated that it can take at least two years or more for companies to recover from a supply chain failure.
Lets see how supply chain works for footwear manufacturer in Bangladesh in short, so that we can find some major challenges. this article mainly aim to export oriented industires:
Here Tier 1 supplier for Bangladeshi footwear manufacture of-course all materials/tools/service provider and customer represent buyers from where they get orders. Now we have tried to see sum-up of supply chain business processes and also challenges faced by Bangladesh Footwear manufacturer.
Customer Relationship Management
The customer relationship management process provides the structure for how the relationship with the customer is developed and maintained. The goal is to make these process improvements win-win solutions for both the firm and the Customer. In summary, the objective of customer relationship management at the strategic level is to identify customer segments, provide criteria for categorizing customers, provide customer teams with guidelines for customizing the product and service offering, develop a framework for metrics, and provide guidelines for the sharing of process improvement benefits with the customers.
Customer Service Management
The customer service management process is the firm’s face to the customer. It provides the single source of customer information, such as product availability, shipping dates and order status. Real-time information is provided to the customer through interfaces with the firm’s functions, such as manufacturing and logistics. In short, the objective of customer service management at the strategic level is to develop the necessary infrastructure, coordination and providing a key point of contact to the customer.
Demand Management
The demand management process needs to balance the customers’ requirements with the firm’s supply capabilities. This includes forecasting demand and synchronizing it with production, procurement, and distribution. Demand Management coordinates all acts of the business that place demand on manufacturing capacity. The process is also concerned with developing and executing contingency plans when operations are interrupted.
Order Fulfillment
A key to effective supply chain management is to meet customer requirements in terms of order fulfillment. Effective order fulfillment requires integration of the firm’s manufacturing, logistics and marketing plans. The firm should develop partnerships with key members of the supply chain to meet customer requirements and reduce total delivered cost to customers.
Manufacturing Flow Management
The manufacturing flow process deals with making the products and establishing the manufacturing flexibility needed to serve the target markets. The process includes all activities necessary for managing the product flow through the manufacturing facilities and for obtaining, implementing and managing flexibility.
Supplier Relationship Management
Supplier relationship management is the process that defines how a company interacts with its suppliers. As the name suggests, this is a mirror image of customer relationship management. Just as a company needs to develop relationships with its customers, it needs to foster relationships with its suppliers. As in the case of customer relationship management, a company should forge close relationships with a small subset of its suppliers, and maintain more traditional relationships with the others.
Product Development and Commercialization
Product development is critical to the continuing success of the firm. Developing new products quickly and getting them to the marketplace in an efficient manner is a major component of corporate success.
Time to market is a critical objective of this process. Supply chain management includes integrating customers and suppliers into the product development process in order to reduce time to market. As product life cycles shorten, the right products must be developed and successfully launched in ever-shorter time frames in order to remain competitive.
Returns Management
Effective returns management is a critical part of supply chain management. While many firms neglect the returns process because management does not believe it is important, this process can assist the firm in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. Effective management of the returns process enables the firm to identify productivity improvement opportunities and breakthrough projects.
Conclusions
Since the concept of supply chain management was introduced, there has been a great deal of confusion about what it actually involves. While some manufacturer in Bangladesh continue to use supply chain management interchangeably with logistics, there is an increasing understanding that it is much more than logistics. However, most of what is written about supply chain management can turn to ruin if management do implement
- Executive support, leadership and commitment to change.
- An understanding of the degree of change that is necessary.
- Agreement on the supply chain management vision and the key processes.
- The necessary commitment of resources and empowerment to achieve the stated goals.
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Literature source: The Supply Chain Management Processes
Keely L. Croxton, Sebastián J. García-Dastugue and Douglas M. Lambert
The Ohio State University
Dale S. Rogers
University of Nevada, Reno
