M.Comm. / In order to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage in the present global trade environment, companies need to find ways to distinguish themselves from their opposition. One way by which this advantage can be gained, is by exercising superior supply chain management. Shortening product life cycles and multiple possible suppliers per product make it even more important to provide excellent customer service. Once again, these events imply the need for superior supply chain management. The question of how to improve supply chain management now arises. The aim of this study is to determine whether the outsourcing of certain supply chain activities can lead to the desired result. A secondary aim is to give an overview on supply chain management, as knowledge on this topic is often lacking or poorly understood, while it is seen as highly important for the reasons stated above. A key step in the process of determining whether or not a company should make use of a third-party supply chain provider, is in determining the strategic objectives of the company. During this step the company needs to determine its key competencies, which in turn helps the company to establish its goals. Once the above process has taken place, a decision can be made on whether to consider the outsourcing of supply chain activities. Companies that are considering the outsource of their supply chain activities, are looking for benefits such as reduced costs and increased service, reduced capital investment, increased flexibility to fluctuating demand, and a focus on core competencies. There are however, possible disadvantages associated with the outsourcing decision. Examples include, negative effects on workforce morale, a fear for loss of control by some supply chain professionals, breaches of confidentiality, and a loss of customer contact.

No description available.

No description available.

Xu Xiaolin. / "August 2006." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-156). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / The main aim or purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the supply chain management on service delivery on the Limpopo Department of Economic, Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET). The field survey was conducted in LEDET in the supply chain management directorate after gaining permission from the Head of Department of LEDET. The study was qualitative in design. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used. The questionnaire has both open ended and closed ended questionnaires. The supply chain management directorate plays an important role in all the departments in South Africa as a whole. Supply chain management in South Africa was created to improve the lives of the communities such as historically disadvantaged individuals, disabled and women, but it is no longer serving its purpose because nowadays it is serving the few politicians, public officials and the friends and relatives of the public officials. One of the findings of this study is that the supply chain management directorate cannot function properly if the public officials who are appointed does not have relevant qualifications, training and experience towards supply chain management. There should always have uniformity of supply chain management in the three spheres of government to prevent corruption. Supply chain management must be centralised. This means that all the tender contract of the three spheres of government must be done in one centralised unit. Linking of the databases in the three spheres of government can also help the supply chain management not to appoint the same service providers in the tender contract. Appointment of service providers must be done electronically to minimize all forms of corruption. To improve service delivery the public officials must know how to interpret the acts, rules, regulations and policies governing supply chain management. They must also monitor and evaluate the entire contract from the start to the end of the contract The public officials working in the supply chain management must be paid competitive salaries, because they are compelled by the low salaries to corruption such as bribery, fraud, nepotism, extortion, embezzlement and conflict of interest become common in place. It is further recommended that the officials working in the supply chain management, who are getting lower salaries must also be evaluated and upgraded to the higher salary, depending on their qualification, experience and training.

Companies seeking competitive advantage in the highly competitive fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry can no longer differentiate themselves from competitors on products and pricing alone. Customer service and the perceived value that customers gain from suppliers is key in staying ahead. The FMCG industry in South Africa (SA) does not place much emphasis on evaluating customer service. This study is an evaluation of the outbound logistics customer service of Unilever Home and Personal Care (UHPC), a multinational FMCG company in SA. The study focuses on attributes of customer service that major retail customers with distribution centres {DC's) consider important and evaluates logistics customer service against key competitors. A survey of three major retail customers' of UHPC was conducted in the major regions of SA. Thirty self-administered questionnaires were sent out to staff at Shoprite, Clicks and Spar DC's across SA. Staff targeted were those associated with inbound logistics and included people as senior as DC Managers to Receiving Controllers. As these are specialised job functions, the sample size comprised of only 30 respondents. A total of 24 responses were analysed to determine the attributes of customer service which UHPC customers consider important and also to determine the perceived performance of UHPC against other competitors. The results revealed that DC customer consider order accuracy, timeliness of delivery, order quality, product availability, order fulfilment, personnel contact, cooperation of supplier, alerts on transportation delays, relationship with supplier and service level agreements to be the ten most important attributes of logistics customer service. The different customer groups did not rank the attributes in the same way. Shoprite and Clicks perceive UHPC's logistics customer service to perform from good to excellent on all 32 attributes whilst Spar felt that UHPC under-performed on 8 attributes. UHPC was highly rated amongst key competitors in the local FMCG industry and outperformed competitors on 28 attributes of logistics customer service. The following areas of improvement were identified for UHPC: order discrepancy handling after delivery, quality/durability of packaging, personal contact knowledge and ability and helpfulness in solving problems and supplier innovation in improving delivery. Recommendations for improvement in UHPC's logistics customer service were made based on the results and the literature review which included repeating the survey at least quarterly on attributes needing improvement so as not having to wait for at least 3 years for another competitor benchmarking survey. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

M.Comm. / As part of supply chain management, the handling of market demand information forms one of the most important concepts in any supply chain. One of the specific goals of supply chain management is to manage and co-ordinate the flow of information from the original source to the final customer. If consumer demand forms the activating element in the supply chain, it becomes clear that the process of demand planning can play an active role in improving the effectiveness of a supply chain. The correct management of information can thus greatly influence the level of integration, the responsiveness, level of customer service and value added to the end product. This is however not a one-sided approach where demand planning can be used as the tool to facilitate supply chain synchronization. The opposite effect can also be found that certain efforts to synchronize the supply chain can greatly improve the demand planning process. The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry relies heavily on forecasted demand figures due to the structure of this industry 5. Developing demand forecasts forms a great part of the demand planning process and the accuracy, timely flow, interpretation and final format of the information is of the utmost importance. A well controlled forecasting process can form a solid foundation to address supply chain problems, reduce the level of wastage, increase the product value to the customer and improve the level of supply chain agility. With this background, the aim of this study will be: To explore the subject of Demand Planning in the synchronization of a FMCG supply chain. It will aim to show how an effective demand planning process can positively influence the supply chain management process and form an active element in supply chain synchronization. To investigate certain supply chain strategies on demand planning to indicate the level of integration between these two processes. In order to do this, a theoretical study needs to be done on Demand Planning and into the elements thereof. Within this structure it will be possible to formulate a structure to evaluate the concept of Demand Planning.

This research's objective is to find out and analyze the factors that affect level of trust and commitment in supply chain management in Tops Supermarket, Bangkok.

The large scale retailer with a strong retail brand and sufficient critical mass in the market place may reach a pivotal point in its development when the directors can address the question: “Does the company want to get directly involved in the functions of centralised buying, logistics and supply chain management?” This thesis takes one such company and expands in some detail about its growth towards excellence in the techniques of retail supply chain change. The evolution and critical decision moments provide an in depth case study for others to use as a benchmark. Its purpose is to examine the role of the retailer as a channel captain; a concept from an earlier marketing era, whose origins it reveals. It takes that learning together with contemporary supply chain thinking and examines real retail supply chain events in Tesco. The results of matching the new and old academic theory with practitioner events confirm that the channel captain is the retailer. It demonstrates that retailers can make the transition into that leadership position and apply supply chain management skills to competitive advantage. This can become a strategic tool both at national and international levels. The principles of this thesis could be used or applied in research in three areas: in depth with Tesco; in breadth, exporting expertise to other retailers; globally with retailers extending the operations internationally and suppliers seeking to trade with European retailers.

Which form of exchange governance performs better in a dynamic environment? This remains an unanswered question in the transaction cost analysis (TCA) and relational exchange literatures. Some researchers purport that transactional governance provides superior performance by providing firms the flexibility to change suppliers. Others suggest that relational governance leads to superior performance because of the willingness of both parties to adapt. Reviews of TCA have turned up ambivalent empirical findings with regard to the effects of uncertainty despite a track record of strong empirical support for other predictions. Because most of TCA and relational exchange theories' predictions enjoy strong support, this research builds upon these theories to propose a theoretical modeling framework for a dynamic environment in a supply chain network (SCN) setting. This dissertation extends TCA and relational exchange to a dynamic, network environment. It uses the approach of building a simulation in order to study in detail the relationship between key exchange factors and the selection of transactional and relational exchange governance over time. This research effort extended TCA theory with a complex adaptive model of supply chain network governance evolution that attempts to link environmental, network, production, firm and exchange factors in a continuously evolving loop. The proposed framework expands transaction cost analysis' explanatory power. Results partially support past scholarly proposal that uncertainty functions as an antecedent of asset specificity rather than as an independent construct affecting governance outcome dependent upon which form of uncertainty is being considered. The successful simulation of supply chain networks as complex adaptive systems shift the focus from deterministic, confirmatory models of exchange to an exploratory, positive model. Instead of exchange governance as an outcome, it is the catalyst of the evolutionary process.