Assignment Sample on Supply Chain Management
1. Introduction of product and justification
Supply chain management is one kind of important management of an organization that refers to the procedure off the floor of services and goods including the manufacturing procedure from a transformation of raw materials into final products. This management helps to identify the whole process from manufacturing to delivery and its five important steps are plan, source, make, deliver and return. In this report, the selected company is The Cheese Board in London and the selected product is Blue cheese.
Cheese is one of the most important products in the UK as different types of attractive food products are made by various types of cheese and as blue is made as spicy steak salad, Macaroni with blue cheese and Bacon, a walnut dip with blue cheese and other delicious dishes. Salad is one of the most important dishes that the people of the UK can generally have. That is why this cheese attracts people as the taste of this cheese makes a different taste of salad (Cheese-board.co.uk, 2021). Blue cheese is one of the famous products in the UK and the selected company manufactures this product and sells this in the country and outside also with the help of other suppliers. That is why the product is selected for this report to identify the proper procedure of supply chain management.
2. Operation in production
Operations in production are important for this product as this is one of the most important dairy products and while making any kind of products related to dairy then the company has to focus on the production procedure. There are different kinds of factors of production that have to be focused on by the organization (Abdel-Baset et al. 2019). At first, the employees in the production team have to be clean and properly dressed up while making the blue cheese. Then the production procedure needs to proceed through different types of stages and the employees have to focus on a few important factors like protein, fat, calories, moisture, and other important things [Refer to Appendix 1]. The employees’ focus that these important things need to be in a particular quantity then the actual blue cheese can be made with a delicious taste (Arunachalam et al. 2018). In this case, to make the blue cheese there are few steps of operation introduction those are the followings:
- Pasteurized milk is needed to make blue cheese and the P/F ratio needs to be about 0.87 that is desirable. Before pasteurization, the milk can be home organized for promoting lipolysis in that cheese. In case of not homogenized milk, it needs to be added 30-gram lipase for per 1000 kg of the milk. When the milk is coloured highly then diluted Titanium dioxide with 0.03 to 0.04% with 10x need to be added with the milk through water before renneting for preventing the green cheese (Cheese-board.co.uk 2021).
- 3% mesophyll eclectic needs to be added at first then the ribbon has to be done for an hour at around 32 degrees centigrade till TA of the milk increases by around at least 0.05% and the pH has to be from 6.6 to 6.5.
- Around 200 ml rennet for each thousand kg milk needs to be measured at first and about 20 times, rennet has to be diluted and added with the milk. After renneting, the setting needs to be a walker for around 20 to 30 minutes however the cut cannot be done before 1 hour (Cheese-board.co.uk 2021).
- Blue cheese is made with the same procedure as Feta cheese. The curd needs to be cut with Omega and the curd needs to be allowed to settle for around 10 minutes. In order to prevent matting, agitation needs to be done gently when the level of acidity is 0.02%.
- Whey needs to be removed from curd and the curd has to be turned over for around 10 minutes. Then the salting procedure has to be done and around 1% weight of the salt of curd needs to be mixed and prepared scrambled eggs are needed for mixing.
- After 2 hours of Omega, that matter has to be covered with cloth overnight with 16 to 20 hours of room temperature till the pH level reaches from 4.5 to 4.7. Again the cheese needs to be salted by rubbing and it has to be stored at around 85% of RH with 12 to 14-degree centigrade for about 24 hours (Cheese-board.co.uk, 2021).
- Before ripening and skewering, the cheese needs to be treated with paraffin, or on the other side, that cheese can be turned and have to be brushed regularly to encourage development on the surface of the smear.
- The main important portion is around 60 holes that need to be done on the east side of the cheese with a 3 mm diameter. The cheese needs to be stored at 12 to 14 degrees centigrade at 95% of the RH for 6 to 8 weeks.
- The last stages of the pack need to be vacuumed and stored at 7 degrees centigrade still consumed and this package needs to be used within 3 months of packaging (Cheese-board.co.uk, 2021).
3. Supply chain of the product
Upstream helps to refer to the procedure of production that means the way from raw materials to the final product comes in upstream supply chain President and on the other side that downstream supply chain procedure helps to identify the process from the packaging procedure in the organization till it reaches the customer (Boon-Itt et al. 2017). In this case, the selected product is the blue cheese of the mentioned company that is the cheeseboard. The selected company is the manufacturing company of cheese that is why the upstream supply chain is quite easy for the organization than the downstream supply chain (Caro et al. 2018). This organization need not handle any kind of supplier companies for manufacturing blue cheese as they have their farm of milk, and that is why they do not have to focus on the milk suppliers rather than this organization need to observe the downstream supply chain management as they have to observe the retailers (Centobelli et al. 2018).
Above figure shows the upstream supply chain management of the product blue cheese in the company, the cheese board in the UK. This company has their farm of milk that is why they have to focus on the farmers training and few vaccination procedures of the animals and regular updates (Craighead et al. 2020). Based on the customer demands the organization has selected to produce milk for the blue cheese product.
Milk is the main ingredient to make blue cheese and that is why for this organization the upstream supply chain management does not come in risk factors based on supply chain management (Das, 2017). In this case, as there is no kind of supplier that is why the risk factors related to suppliers need not be focused on. Only the highlighted factors have to be observed, those are training procedures of the farmers, the vaccination to the animals, and the other chemical ingredients that need to be collected from the technical firms (De Angelis et al. 2018).
Figure 2 shows the downstream supply chain management based on B2C procedure that means business to customers. This management is the most important for the selected company as the product is blue cheese. This is one of the most important products in the UK as this kind of cheese is very delicious and the demand for this product is high in the country (de Oliveira et al. 2017). Not only in the UK but also in other countries the demand for the product is high. In downstream supply chain management, the products have to be packaged at first then the levelling has to be done after that the transportation comes. Through different types of distribution centres and retailers, the products can reach the customers from the manufacturing organization (Esmaeilian et al. 2020). In this case, the selected company has also their retail shop which is why they can sell their product from their retail shop. On the other side, they do not have so many retail shops in different countries that are why they have selected few organizations as their suppliers (Farooque et al. 2019). The list of the suppliers is Spencer and Marks, Waitrose, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrison’s, and booths.
4. Explanation of communication of different organizations involved in the supply chain (in the UK or other country)
Terrific communication can help to enhance the effective procedure of supply chain management and the result of the communication is that supply chain management can be more effective, more efficient, and faster than before. In case of priority list best practices and standards related to communication then the goal of the supply chain management can be fulfilled and through this procedure, the organization can develop their supply chain management and this procedure also helps to enhance the growth of the organization based on their sales of the selected product (Gölgeci and Kuivalainen, 2020).
Above figure shows the list of suppliers of the selected organization to sell their mentioned product blue cheese. As the product is demanded by the customers in other countries also and this organization does not have a retail shop in other countries that is why they have selected few suppliers to sell their blue cheese product to other customers of the selected country (Jia et al. 2018). The list of the suppliers is Spencer and Marks, Waitrose, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morison’s, and booths. There are few steps to explain the communication procedure of different organizations that are involved in the supply chain management of the selected company (Koberg and Longoni, 2019). The following steps are:
- Clear expectation plan:
Clear expectation plans need to be done before communicating with the suppliers. After creating a proper expectation plan the communication with the suppliers can be fruitful and it also helps to build new and strong relationships between the suppliers and the organization (Kot, 2018). It helps to ensure the effectiveness of business partnership through fever headache best of all. A rush of shipping costs more of the on-time deliveries and fewer shortages (Lamba and Singh, 2017). If all of these factors can be observed by the selected organization then effective communication can be fruitful (Lambert and Enz, 2017). There are few powerful ways as stools to do good supplier communication those factors are the following:
- The business values need to be observed across the suppliers [Refer to Appendix 2]
- Simple and trackable communication needs to be allowed (Litke et al. 2019)
- Collaboration tools like the project commenting features have to be implemented properly
- Important data for both parties can be seen (Liu et al. 2017)
- New users can be run easily through the simple communication
- This communication is one of the easiest access for everyone (Mangla et al. 2017)
- Know the parts of the action for the selected organizations:
Few parts of the action need to be selected by the organization and it is important to understand what kinds of actions have to be done by the company. Then the communication procedure has to be implemented with the suppliers as at first it is needed to understand what actions have to be done from the side of the organization (Marchi and Zanoni, 2017). It is needed to make sure that everything related to products has been discussed in the internal procedure of the company through call or email then the benefits of knowing everything about the product are needed and the main important thing is the risk factor (Moktadir et al. 2018). It is needed to understand the risk factor and its mitigation procedures through adopting the latest technologies and strategies.
- Requirements of clear measurements:
Few factors that are required for clear measurements are quality performance cost performance inventory performance that is over master inventory performance that is under mean and on-time delivery performance. The quality of the performance has to be observed by the organization at first while communicating with the suppliers has any kind of inconvenience in the performance directly affecting the organizations who are selling their products through those suppliers (Nakasumi, 2017). Cost performance is one of the most important factors while communicating with the supplier that it is important to focus on the cost that is demanded by the suppliers to sell their products (Nguyen et al. 2018). The calculation has to be observed by the selected organization that is cost performance percentage = (Receipt Price * Units Received) / (Baseline of standard price * Units Received) (Pettit et al. 2019).
The max level and mean level of percentage based on the items of the suppliers need to be calculated based on the inventory. it is needed to understand the ratio of on-time delivery performances as the supplier is directly related to the organization (Rejeb et al. 2019). Any kind of delay of their products can directly affect the image of the selected company that is why it is needed to focus on the on-time delivery procedure of the suppliers.
- Punctuality:
Punctuality is one of the most important characteristics while communicating with the suppliers that are why it is important to provide respect to others’ time. The substances have to be punctual on the other side so the organization needs to be providing their products on time (Saberi et al. 2019). That is why for the effective communication procedure it is needed to be punctual for both of the suppliers and the selected organization.
- Do not hurry but be quick:
It is needed to be quick however it is additionally important not to be in a hurry. In the supply chain management proceedings of the organization, it is important to communicate with the suppliers as the suppliers are directly attached to the organizations (Singh et al. 2018). Any kind of inconvenience related to the products can affect the organization through the issues that can be created by the suppliers. That is why it’s important to be quick, however, it is crucial to focus on every procedure, not in a hurry (Tortorella et al. 2017).
5. Critically evaluate the procedure to meet customer’s need in operation management of product through concepts, theories, and framework
The customers’ needs are one of the most important factors of an organization that is why in operation management the procedure to meet the needs of the customer has to be observed by the company. That is why in this report the concept of a few theories and Frameworks has to be critically evaluated to understand the procedure for meeting the needs of the customer (Tseng et al. 2019). In this case, based on operations management theory two important theories have been selected to critically evaluate the procedure to meet the needs of the customer (Tumpa et al. 2019). Those are six sigma theory and lean manufacturing theory.
Above figure shows the theory of Six Sigma based on the procedure to meet customer’s needs in operation management. Bill Smith, an American engineer, developed this theory in 1986. This theory can help to provide 99.99966% of different opportunities and satisfy the customers. The sigmas define measure analyze improve and control. It is needed to define all the operational procedures then it is important to be measured (Arunachalam et al. 2018). The analysis is one of the most important procedures of an organization to improve their strategies and structure and the most important factor is control. The six topics of sigmas are value stream mapping, root cause analysis, a lean, culture of quality, and continuous improvement (Boon-Itt et al. 2017). As per his opinion, the six sigma theory helps to develop a proper system of customer need-based operation management.
Figure 5: Lean Manufacturing Theory
(Source: Caro et al. 2018)
At first, the value needs to be defined properly then the value stream map has to be done. After that, the flow needs to be created and the pool has to be established by the organization. It is important to speed the perfection of the lean principles (Centobelli et al. 2018). Based on the perception of John Krafcik, this theory helps to provide proper quality of production with the least wastage and through this theory, the customers of the company can be profitable.
Framework:
After analyzing the theories and critically evaluating the operation management of the selected organization, the Framework has been created based on the needs of the customers for the cheese board company.
| Customer Needs |
| Oder Fulfillment after Sales service |
| New Product Development |
| New products Current Products |
| Competitive Dimensions and requirements |
| Enterprise Capabilities |
| Operations and suppliers Capabilities |
|
R & D |
| Financial Management |
| Human Resource Management |
| Information Management |
| Distribution |
|
People |
|
Systems |
|
Technology |
| Quality Dependability Flexibility Price Speed |
6. Identify effectiveness and ineffectiveness in product’s operation process and highlight the relevance, pros, and cons of lean management
Effectiveness and ineffectiveness in product’s operation process
The effectiveness in the product operation process helps to refer to the ability of the organization for delivering services or products that are superior to other competitors. On the other side, the ineffectiveness of operation procedure is the planning procedure and resources can take more time then the operation can be eliminated from the minor possibility and the troubles can be avoided (Clauson et al. 2018).
Pros and cons of lean management
- The pros of lean manufacturing are the following
- In order to finish products the least time need to be reduced
- In order to sync the manufacturing procedure, this needs to be streamlined with the expectations of customers (Craighead et al. 2020)
- With the production procedure, the staffs need to be involved and motivated
- The staffs need to be trained for overhead and optimize the cost at the least
- Tools, suppliers, and workspace have to be optimized by the organizations (Das, 2017)
- It needs to order less raw materials and the stacks need to be finished in time
- The cons of lean manufacturing are the following
- In order to function accordingly based on lean management a company requires a proper production system
- The economic structure and the scale are next to the impossible for lacking the stock spare materials (De Angelis et al. 2018)
- It is required for all the employees to buy into lean methodology otherwise the production can suffer
- Based on the heavy emphasis the forecasting of the organization cannot be emphasized and on the other side, the latest technologies and strategies cannot be implemented properly (de Camargo Fiorini et al. 2017)
- Streamlined proceed your need to be focused for providing the margin of the possible errors
7. Recommendations for supply chain management
- Implementations of good supply chain management plan
After analyzing the supply chain management it is recommended that at first proper planning of supply chain management is needed to be implemented in the selected organization. In this case, the cheese board company has to be focused on their downstream supply chain management and their suppliers.
- Provide effort in the communication procedure
It is recommended to provide more effort in communication to CDR with the suppliers like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and other important retail companies that they can sell the blue cheese with more effectiveness.
- Increases the visibility of Supply Chain Management
It is also recommended that the visibility of supply chain management needs to be increased properly to understand the risk management procedure related to supply chain.
8. Conclusion
After analyzing the whole report it is concluded that the selected organization and the mentioned product have successfully analyzed based on the supply chain management procedure. The selected product blue cheese is one of the most important products in the UK that is why the product has been selected and based on the mentioned product the operation of the production procedure has to be analyzed here through 9 important stages.
A proper upstream supply chain and downstream supply chain management have also been analyzed here and this shows that downstream supply chain is more important than upstream supply chain for the selected organization. The downstream supply chain management of the cheese board company shows the list of suppliers that are Spencer and Marks, Waitrose, ASDA, and others. Based on the suppliers the communication of different organizations has also been analyzed in this report through 5 important factors. In order to identify the importance of supply chain management and the expectation of customers, two theories husband selected are the six sigma theory and lean manufacturing theory. Both of these two theories help to understand the procedure to meet customers’ needs in operation management and a Framework has also been done based on the operations management. Effectiveness and ineffectiveness in the product operation procedure and a few pros and cons of lean management have also been analyzed in this report and based on this whole analysis the recommendation for supply chain management has been done here.
References
Arunachalam, D., Kumar, N. and Kawalek, J.P., 2018. Understanding big data analytics capabilities in supply chain management: Unravelling the issues, challenges and implications for practice. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 114, pp.416-436.
Boon-Itt, S., Wong, C.Y. and Wong, C.W., 2017. Service supply chain management process capabilities: Measurement development. International Journal of Production Economics, 193, pp.1-11.
Caro, M.P., Ali, M.S., Vecchio, M. and Giaffreda, R., 2018, May. Blockchain-based traceability in Agri-Food supply chain management: A practical implementation. In 2018 IoT Vertical and Topical Summit on Agriculture-Tuscany (IOT Tuscany) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Centobelli, P., Cerchione, R. and Esposito, E., 2018. Environmental sustainability and energy-efficient supply chain management: A review of research trends and proposed guidelines. Energies, 11(2), pp.274-276.
Cheese-board.co.uk (2021), overview of the organization, available at: http://www.cheese-board.co.uk/ [access on 03-05-2021]
Clauson, K.A., Breeden, E.A., Davidson, C. and Mackey, T.K., 2018. Leveraging blockchain technology to enhance supply chain management in healthcare: an exploration of challenges and opportunities in the health supply chain. Blockchain in healthcare today, 1(3), pp.1-12.
Craighead, C.W., Ketchen Jr, D.J. and Darby, J.L., 2020. Pandemics and supply chain management research: toward a theoretical toolbox. Decision Sciences, 51(4), pp.838-866.
Das, D., 2017. Development and validation of a scale for measuring Sustainable Supply Chain Management practices and performance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 164, pp.1344-1362.
De Angelis, R., Howard, M. and Miemczyk, J., 2018. Supply chain management and the circular economy: towards the circular supply chain. Production Planning & Control, 29(6), pp.425-437.
de Camargo Fiorini, P. and Jabbour, C.J.C., 2017. Information systems and sustainable supply chain management towards a more sustainable society: Where we are and where we are going. International Journal of Information Management, 37(4), pp.241-249.
de Oliveira, U.R., Espindola, L.S., da Silva, I.R., da Silva, I.N. and Rocha, H.M., 2018. A systematic literature review on green supply chain management: Research implications and future perspectives. Journal of Cleaner Production, 187, pp.537-561.
Esmaeilian, B., Sarkis, J., Lewis, K. and Behdad, S., 2020. Blockchain for the future of sustainable supply chain management in Industry 4.0. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 163, pp.105063-105065.
Farooque, M., Zhang, A., Thürer, M., Qu, T. and Huisingh, D., 2019. Circular supply chain management: A definition and structured literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 228, pp.882-900.
Gölgeci, I. and Kuivalainen, O., 2020. Does social capital matter for supply chain resilience? The role of absorptive capacity and marketing-supply chain management alignment. Industrial Marketing Management, 84, pp.63-74.
Ivanov, D., Sethi, S., Dolgui, A. and Sokolov, B., 2018. A survey on control theory applications to operational systems, supply chain management, and Industry 4.0. Annual Reviews in Control, 46, pp.134-147.
Jia, F., Zuluaga-Cardona, L., Bailey, A. and Rueda, X., 2018. Sustainable supply chain management in developing countries: An analysis of the literature. Journal of Cleaner Production, 189, pp.263-278.
Koberg, E. and Longoni, A., 2019. A systematic review of sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains. Journal of cleaner production, 207, pp.1084-1098.
Kot, S., 2018. Sustainable supply chain management in small and medium enterprises. Sustainability, 10(4), pp.1142-1144.
Lamba, K. and Singh, S.P., 2017. Big data in operations and supply chain management: current trends and future perspectives. Production Planning & Control, 28(11-12), pp.877-890.
Lambert, D.M. and Enz, M.G., 2017. Issues in supply chain management: Progress and potential. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, pp.1-16.
Litke, A., Anagnostopoulos, D. and Varvarigou, T., 2019. Blockchains for supply chain management: Architectural elements and challenges towards a global scale deployment. Logistics, 3(1), pp.3-6.
Liu, W., Bai, E., Liu, L. and Wei, W., 2017. A framework of sustainable service supply chain management: A literature review and research agenda. Sustainability, 9(3), pp.420-422.
Mangla, S.K., Luthra, S., Mishra, N., Singh, A., Rana, N.P., Dora, M. and Dwivedi, Y., 2018. Barriers to effective circular supply chain management in a developing country context. Production Planning & Control, 29(6), pp.551-569.
Marchi, B. and Zanoni, S., 2017. Supply chain management for improved energy efficiency: Review and opportunities. Energies, 10(10), pp.1617-1619.
Moktadir, M.A., Ali, S.M., Rajesh, R. and Paul, S.K., 2018. Modeling the interrelationships among barriers to sustainable supply chain management in leather industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 181, pp.631-651.
Nakasumi, M., 2017, July. Information sharing for supply chain management based on block chain technology. In 2017 IEEE 19th conference on business informatics (CBI) (Vol. 1, pp. 140-149). IEEE.
Nguyen, T., Li, Z.H.O.U., Spiegler, V., Ieromonachou, P. and Lin, Y., 2018. Big data analytics in supply chain management: A state-of-the-art literature review. Computers & Operations Research, 98, pp.254-264.
Pettit, T.J., Croxton, K.L. and Fiksel, J., 2019. The evolution of resilience in supply chain management: a retrospective on ensuring supply chain resilience. Journal of Business Logistics, 40(1), pp.56-65.
Rejeb, A., Keogh, J.G. and Treiblmaier, H., 2019. Leveraging the internet of things and blockchain technology in supply chain management. Future Internet, 11(7), pp.160-162.
Saberi, S., Kouhizadeh, M., Sarkis, J. and Shen, L., 2019. Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management. International Journal of Production Research, 57(7), pp.2117-2135.
Singh, A., Shukla, N. and Mishra, N., 2018. Social media data analytics to improve supply chain management in food industries. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 114, pp.398-415.
Tortorella, G.L., Miorando, R. and Marodin, G., 2017. Lean supply chain management: Empirical research on practices, contexts and performance. International Journal of Production Economics, 193, pp.98-112.
Tseng, M.L., Islam, M.S., Karia, N., Fauzi, F.A. and Afrin, S., 2019. A literature review on green supply chain management: Trends and future challenges. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 141, pp.145-162.
Tumpa, T.J., Ali, S.M., Rahman, M.H., Paul, S.K., Chowdhury, P. and Khan, S.A.R., 2019. Barriers to green supply chain management: An emerging economy context. Journal of Cleaner Production, 236, pp.117616-117618.
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
