International:

US army:

The US army’s logistics enterprise is actually gigantic in scale and scope.

it is not the size and the difficulty of the supply chain that cause difficulty
in the system but it is the structure and the policies follow within the
system that are the main cause. Army logistics have mainly suffered from
more than a few disorders which are both systematic and chronic.
Problems are acknowledged using tools such as the inventory
management theory, supply chain morality and the logistic system. Some
of the problems identified are

• Lack of empirically calculated manufacture function which includes

both uncertainty and variability at the point of using up of the supply
chain resultant in shocking budgeting, unproductive planning, and
administration to achieve the objective.

• Lack of proper considerate of need for the mission and prepared

demands.

• Lack of middle army supply chain and sustain management.

WalMart's Inbound Freight Move:

Wal-Mart's new strategic scheme to expand their control over their inbound
family freight humors me for two reasons: The revision of freight terms from
prepaid to assemble isn’t a new notion. Second, it can't be called a plan; it
is really just a tactic. A large aggregator of freight from a extensive range of
location should forever be endeavoring to organize its inbound provide line
Sam Walton’s core epiphany when he operate his original 5 and 10 stores
was: as long as the wholesalers controlled the sharing the wholesalers
would manage the profit Walton made. Jammed between the spirited
pricing of the rest of the retail supplies who were buying from in effect the
same wholesalers, Walton’s stores would constantly have to fight for
customer’s attention. He needed a pre-emption policy. WalMart's come
near using personal fleets to transport to their stores is a tactic that helped
the company achieve two different strategies. The 1st strategy is to limit the
border that would have to be paid to a third-party as long as that service.
The 2nd strategy is scheming the fleet Wal-Mart can control the quality and
timing of the repair to move the freight from the distribution centers to the
stores. That 2nd strategy is an central goal in dipping labor costs and
maximize the use of property and resources.

Littlewoods

Littlewoods Stores is one of Britain’s major retailers of high-quality wear, with

136 stores about the UK and Northern Ireland. The retail clothing business

market is very competitive, so the company embarked, in the late 1990s, on

an IT-supported initiative to pick up its supply chain competence. A somber

SCM problem was overstocking. In arrange to get a improved SCM, the

company introduced a Web-based recital coverage system. The scheme

analyze, on a daily basis, marketing and financial data, space planning,

merchandizing, and purchasing data. For case in point, the marketing

partition can now carry out modish sales, stock and contractor analyses to

make key operational decisions on pricing and inventory. Using the Web,

analysts can view sales and stock data in any federation of levels and

category, yet at a stock keeping unit (SKU), and at daily levels. The users

can without problems drill down to comprehensive sales and supplementary

data. The system uses a data warehouse, DSS and other end-user slanting

software to make bigger decisions.

Warner lambert Applies Integrated Supply Chain

WL's major products, Listerine antibacterial mouthwash. The resources calm

beginning eucalyptus trees are ship to the WL developed plant in New

Jersey. The cranium trouble there is to decide how much Listerine to

produce. Listerine is purchase by many of retail stores, some of which are

giants such as Wal-Mart. The problem that the manufacturing plant is faces

with is forecasting the overall demand. Inventories are expensive to keep,

and shortages may result in loss of business and reputation. WL forecasts

demand with the help of Manugistics Inc.’s Demand Planning information

system. (Manugistics is a vendor of IT software for SCM). Used with other

products in Manugistics’ Supply Chain Planning suite, the system analyzes

manufacturing, distribution and sales data against expected demand and

business climate information, to help WL decide how much Listerine to

make and distribute, and how much of each raw ingredient is needed. The

groups enter the projected demand for Listerine into a Marcam Corp. Prism

Capacity Planning system, which schedules the production of Listerine in the

amounts needed, and generates electronic purchase orders for WL’s

suppliers. WL’s supply chain excellence stems from its innovative

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) program.

Quantum Corporation

Quantum Corporation is a major US manufacturer of hard disk drives and

other high technology storage components. Quantum faced two key

challenges in its manufacturing process. The first was streamlining its

component supply process to lower on-hand inventory. Quantum’s

traditional ordering process was labor-intensive, involving numerous phone

calls and manual inventory checks. To ensure that production would not be

interrupted, the process required high levels of on-hand inventory.

Quantum’s second challenge was to improve the quality of the component

data in their Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system. Incomplete and

inaccurate data caused delays in production. To automate its component

supply process, Quantum initiated in 1999 an enter-enterprise system to

automatically e-mail reorders to suppliers using an innovative event detection and

notification solution from Categoric Software. The system scans Quantum’s

databases twice daily, assessing material requirements from one application

module against inventory levels tracked in another. Orders are automatically

initiated and sent to suppliers as needed, allowing suppliers to make regular

deliveries that match Quantum’s production schedule. The estimated value of the

improved ordering process using the new system is millions of dollars in inventory

reductions .

Shoe Right Limited:

This particular situation outlines the shape of the main supply chains in a simple

manufacturer. With ShoeRight materials are obtained locally, or imported from a

few main suppliers. The more interesting part of their logistics comes with

distribution out to customers. The supply chains give alternative routes to

customers, and these are surprisingly complex. Designing the supply chain,
setting the relationships between different parts, and organizing the flow of

materials is a surprisingly difficult job.

Petro-Canada

Initially Petro-Canada started developing strategic alliances with its suppliers as a

way of reducing its cost of materials. Their early experiences proved so successful

that this became a standard way of working. However, it is never easy to make

change working practices, so PC developed a formal procedure that it goes through

with potential partners. These seven steps suggest a general way for organizations

to move towards a new alliance. Initially Petro-Canada started developing strategic

alliances with its suppliers as a way of reducing its cost of materials. Their early

experiences proved so successful that this became a standard way of working.

However, it is never easy to make change working practices, so PC developed a

formal procedure that it goes through with potential partners. These seven steps

suggest a general way for organizations to move towards a new alliance.

Sony:

A posting in The Deal indicates that the company will slash material costs by 20%

($5.3 billion USD), and cut total suppliers to 1200 from the current 2500 by March of

2011.Taking on a challenge to reduce overall material costs by 20% in two years

has proven to be challenge for companies in profitable times, let alone in crisis

situations. But perhaps the current crisis can drive change at a faster pace. With

competitors such as Apple positioned in a virtual supply chain, with many

flexibilities, Sony will have no choice but to move quickly. Soft demand and a

declining yen have had their toll. But there is a positive aspect to this pending

change. Sony’s existing supply chain management team has the benefit of learning

what has and has not worked well in high tech value-chains. Advanced technology

will certainly help if applied smartly. The Sony brand also has enormous power

within the market, something which other companies have failed to learn in

wholesale slashing of supply chain costs.

Addidas

The Adidas Group, with its wide collection of product lines, is challenge by an

increasing individualization of demand. There is a propensity towards an

understanding economy, a design orientation, and, most prominently, a new

responsiveness of quality and functionality that demands durable and reliable

products resultant exactly to the needs of the buyer. Customers with escalating

purchasing power are more and more attempting to put across their personality by

earnings of individual product choice. As a result, Adidas was forced to create

product programs with an increasing number of variants. This growth makes

forecasting and preparation for Adidas more difficult than ever. The result is high

overstocks, an increasing fashion peril, an huge supply chain difficulty, and the

necessity to provide often large discount to get rid of surplus products. Adidas

realized that implement made-to-order manufacturing, as an alternative of made-to-

stock variant production, could become a promising option to manage the costs of

variant explosion and broad product assortment. Adidas' organization board

decided to head towards mass customization (MC). The supplier has to interact with

the customer to obtain specific information to define and translate the customers'

wants and desires into a concrete product requirement. However, instead of just
listening to the customer, in many cases customers are performing this design

(configuration) activity by themselves on a tool complete by the manufacturer. The

selling procedure turns into a co-design process.

Indian:

Pantaloons:

More than eight after it forayed into retail business, Pantaloon retail decided
to implement SAP after growing in Indian retail market. Store Operations
was never so important as it is now. Successful retailers are those who know
that the battle for customers is only won at the frontline , which in the case
of the retail chain is at its store. Pantaloon was regularly opening stores in
metros and there was and immediate need of reliable enterprise wide
application to help run its business effectively. After a evaluation of
different options management at Pantaloons have decided to go for SAP.
Some qualities of SAP are that they support product development with
partners in the supply chain sourcing and procurement. The implementation
was outsourced to a third party. The implementation was done by a SAP
team Novasoft which is based in Singapore. Pantaloons has not seen any
immediate benefits out of this but this application has really some long term
benefits which can be seen in the performance of various aspects. Now
Pantaloons eyes for an successful implementation of WMF with RFID
Customer Intelligence and CRM.

Subhiksha:

Subhiksha was started by R. Subramaniam, an IIM A and IIT Chennai

alumnus with its first store at Chennai. It was set as a discount store at
prices which are much lower than other retail outlets. Subhiksha didn’t
realize that with this only a few stores would be profitable and generate
positive cash flows. It moved across different sectors such as medicine,
grocery, IT, mobile etc very fast. Subhiksha was thinking of going for an IPO
in 2007 but shelved it in view of “uncertain market conditions”. But I believe
that they got greedy as they expected a market correction. Subhiksha
instead of stabilizing and consolidating themselves first in different places
and then moving to newer locations, tried to be the first in every town.
Subhiksha had a bad history of credit defaults and this led to supply
breakages. This led to situations where sometimes the store had very high
inventory and at others, the stocks were out. This led to great
dissatisfaction. Subhiksha closed down in 2009 amid allegations of defaults,
non – wages payments and bankruptcy. The people behind it are still
struggling to come up with valid explanations

Vishal Mega Mart:

Ram Chandra Aggarwal set up his Vishal Garments Store in 1994 – three
years before Biyani’s Pantaloon and seven years before setting up Vishal
Retail. It was set as a discount stores at prices which are much lower than
other retail outlets. It also committed the same mistakes almost as
Subhiksha did but Subhiksha closed but Vishal is still in the market, there
are some points of similarity in their fall from glory which I would like to
mention here. Vishal expanded without having the proper capital. They got
the orders from the suppliers but when the stores didn’t work out, the entire
supply chain got choked. Vishal on the other hand raised Rs 110 crore from
an IPO in June 2007 which wasn’t enough to meet it scorching growth
pattern. It had 50 stores by then and was looking to expand to 130 stores in
a year. But it went for short term debt which resulted in a big blow to their
entire supply chain when the stores didn’t happen as intended. Vishal’s
distribution center led model failed as it couldn’t build an IT network. Buying
at warehouses was mostly not aligned to what the customers needed and
resulted in dead inventory. Vishal tried to develop private labels in almost
every category but had limited scale to support them. Vishal has brought
down the rentals of the properties, decreased its expenses and closed down
two dozen stores and warehouses and plans to close more. They still need
an infusion of about Rs 50 crore. Would the lenders give them?

Wal-Mart in India:

India's USD 450 billion retail sector is largely closed to overseas firms, with
those carrying multiple brands restricted to cash-and-carry, or wholesale,
outlets like the ones Wal-Mart operates in India. the government took a
tentative step towards opening the organised retail sector to foreign
companies by circulating a discussion paper on the issue, and Wal-Mart, the
world's biggest retailer, has said it could open hundreds of stores in India if
rules are relaxed. But in a country where at least 40% of produce is wasted
because of inadequate storage and transportation, large investments in
warehouses, refrigerated trucks and other amenities are needed.

Supply Chain for Agri Retail in India:

India is among the top producers of agricultural and farm products but the
distribution system is the least developed. Following are the problems with
the distribution system: many intermediaries present in the value chain eats
up the profit of the producers and make the product costly, wastages during
the transportation, lack of cold storage and predominantly the wastages on
the field during the harvesting and the post harvesting, the logistics
management is still inefficient and the marketing channels is ill defined. All
this results in the repetition of chain with efficiencies. The supply chain also
suffers from information asymmetry, lack of information, regarding market
accessibility, pressure of consolidation forces the producers to make wrong
decision on account of selection of the crop to be produced. All these results
in high prices along with poor quality of production. The distribution
activities are infested by the government of India this system in corporate
some more intermediaries in the supply chain resulting in more
insufficiency.

Dabur:

In the year 2001 Dabur planned to tackle its supply chain 30 factories, six
key ware houses and 52 stocking points. The company wanted a system
that could control distribution and sales forecasting reducing the pipeline
inventory. The primary plan was brought into action within 16 months. The
integrated primary and secondary system had many features like tight
integration of schemes, stockiest credit limit control, automated banking
cheques and online cheque reconciliation. Dabur has created a big supply
chain which has stockiest. Data from them were collected on a weekly basis.
If it was a primary distributor then and incremental back up was in place to
send the data to the CFA after it closes the operation for the day. These
computed process was mentioned as cubing process. Now the major
problems faced was internet connectivity had to be provided to the
secondary stockiest. Dabur found and option to download the software and
update it later. Power was another major issue. To curb this Dabur had set a
stringent rule that every stockiest need to have a UPS and a genretor set in
case of a power shortage. By integrating the system this way Dabur’s main
aim was to reduce the number of inventory days carried in pipeline. The aim
is to shift the focus to the stockiest rather then the CFA’s to get a real
picture of the market.

HUL:

An IT-powered system has been implement to supply stocks to

redeployment stockiest on a continuous replenishment basis. The objective
is to catalyze HUL's growth by ensuring that the right product is available at
the right place in right quantities, in the most cost-effective manner. For
this, stockiest have been connected with the company through an Internet-
based network, called RSNet, for online interaction on orders, dispatches,
information sharing and monitoring. RS Net covers about 80% of the
company's turnover. Today, the sales system gets to know every day what
HUL stockiest have sold to almost a million outlets across the country. RS
Net is part of Project Leap, HUL's end-to-end supply chain, which also
includes a back-end system connecting suppliers, all company sites and
stretching right up to stockiest. Hindustan Unilever, which once pioneered
distribution in India, is today reinventing distribution - creating new
channels, and redefining the way current channels are serviced. In the
process it is converging product availability, with brand communication and
brand experience. In the end it could be said that HUL's SCM is one of the
best in the world and it is quite difficult for any company to challenge it. In
India if we see, we will find that LUX is available everywhere and it is
through this SCM only that HUL is able to do that.

Ranbaxy:

Ranbaxy had faced a main challenge that is storage and maintaining critical
temperature during storage and transportation of pharmacy products.
Maintaining the delivery schedules and meeting the deadlines are also the
problem. The other challenges were setting up of ware house at important
location and distribution centre at various overseas and domestic locations
by properly identifying them ensuring compliance of norms set up by Food
and Drug Administration.

Indian Oil: