Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1
INTRODUCTION
LOGISITICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN
THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL DISTRIBUTION
WHAT IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
IT & SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION
KEY AREAS WHERE INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY IS ASSOCIATED WITH LOGISTICS
AND SCM
Part 2
COMPANY’S BACKGROUND
APPLE’S WORLDWIDE SUPPLY CHAIN
APPLES’S VS. AMAZON’S SUPPLY CHAIN
INFORMATION SYSTEM MANAGEMENT IN APPLE
CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY USED BY APPLE TO
RETAIN ITS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
REFERENCE LIST
INTRODUCTION
The supply chain covers an even broader area. This includes the supply of
raw materials and the distribution of goods to the final customer. Therefore:
Logistics and the supply chain cover the physical and information movement
and stockpile from raw material through to the final delivery of the final
product. Crucial significance is now given to the importance of information.
Basic Communication
Supply chain planning
Warehousing
Inventory
Transport
E-commerce
Other applications
Below it follows a brief summary and analysis of the most important areas and
roles:
Basic communication
Warehouse
Inventory
The role of predicting the future customer demand and the goods in stock
require the use of special software. Inventory management systems give the
ability to control the stock levels within a company. This type of software
provides the opportunity to a company not only to decrease its stock levels,
when it is required, saving money but also to maintain its customer by
avoiding stock- outs. (Ruston et.al 2010).
Transport
Mileage travelled
Tones carried
Maintenance details
Fuel used
Driver’s details
Tachograph details and analysis
(Ruston et.al 2010)
E- Commerce
2. CASE STUDY
COMPANY’s BACKGROUND
The firm designs and sells mobile devices, personal computers and a diversity
of complimentary applications. The firm’s hardware commodities consist of: I
phone (smartphone), I pad (tablet), mac (pc), I pod, apple watch and apple tv.
The company produces also its own software: ios,macOs, watchOs and tvOs.
Some of the firm’s most significant complimentary applications are: itunes,
appstore, Mac app store and Tv appstore. Apple is popular for leading
innovation and its premium designs. But a few only knows that a key point
also is how the company manages its inventory. It needs to be highlighted
that Gartner classify the firm’s supply chain as the world’s best form 2010 to
2013. Apples’ Chief Executive Officer, Tim Cook has been the company’s
Chief Operating Officer in 2005 and he was responsible for the modification of
the company’s chaotic and complex operations. Cook regards that the
inventory in the market of technology like smartphones, tablets and pc
amortize very soon and has characterized the inventory as evil (Clara Lu,
2014).
One of the most important modifications in the company’s supply chain was
that the focus change from cost reduction to the improvement of the final
consumer.
Asset management.
Tim Cook’s (Apple’s CEO) main belief was the massive reduction of inventory,
of the number of warehouses and letting the main suppliers to compete to
each other.
Procurement
Whereas the business strategy contains the general route that a company
aims to take the supply chain strategy includes the firm’s operations in order
to meet a particular supply chain aim (UPS 2005). Considering Apple’s case,
its supply chain strategy deals with customers’ changeable needs, whereas
the danger of inadequate supple is limited by pooling inventory (Hettiarachchi
2017).
Logistics management
source: supplychain247.com
Source: supply247.com
Supplier’s risk
The company does not manufacture its own products. The most crucial
Apple’s product (iphone) is produced in China by others. As a result a great
risk is created towards Apple because the company depends on its supplier in
a great degree.
Competiveness
In contrast to other competitors like Samsung or Sony, Apple has design its
own operating systems like ios and MacOs. It is easily assimilated that the
company establishes its own standards in the products designs but a
customer may want to choose something with less quality but cheaper than
an iphone or ipad.
Geographical environment
Every nation has its own customs and traditions and a company needs to
adopt in the global environment. In the UAE Facetime, an app like Viber,
Whatsupp and Skype is prohibited not only reducing Apple’s total revenues in
the area but also the consumer interest for using Apple’s products.
Inventory Turnover
Source: supplychainopz
From the above chart appears to be Apple more efficient than Amazon and
the reason for that is that Amazon is a distribution company which need to
keep a huge amount of stock.
Important suppliers
Source: supplychainopz
Amazon has a total of 3 million suppliers worldwide. The most crucial from
them are approximately 300.000. On the other hand, globally Apple has only
156 of major suppliers.
Stock keeping Unit is a number allocate to a product in order the company will
be able to follow the inventory. It is without a question that the stock keeping
unit is a mark of supply chain complication.
Source: supplychainopz
As everyone can observe the Amazon’s supply chain is by far more complex
than Apple’s.
The networks’ safety should be one the main Apple’s worries. After the
tremendous increase in Apple’s market share, ending Microsoft monopoly,
this could make Apple vulnerable to hackers attack. Therefore the firm should
grow its networks security.
Data Analytics
Apple being one of the profitable technology firm began to use big data
analytics for designing systems that customers tends to use. One great
reason that Apple decided to design its own smart watch (Applewatch) was
24/7 gathering of data. Moreover, by collecting a huge amount of data the
company has the opportunity to provide better customer services fulfilling the
majority of customers’ needs. One of the most famous attribute of big data is
Apple’s Siri (Marr, 2015)
Cloud computing
The service that Apple provides for cloud computing is icloud. The most
important advantages that the apps has are: (Tanhf, 2012)
DISCUSSION &CONCLUSION
To conclude with, logistics information system are as much crucial for logistics
& supply chain as the physical distribution because they are the mechanism
of capturing, analyzing and communicating information about logistics and
scm. They key areas where information technology is applied to logistics are:
basic communication, supply chain planning, warehousing, inventory,
transport and e- commerce. As a result logistics now, from focusing just on
the distribution of sufficient products to customers, it can:
Carry data about order status and product availability.
Decrease inventory
Give flexibility to how, when and where the raw materials can be
process to gain competitive advantage.
Regarding the case of Apple understands its supply chain as a medium for
value-added and as a key instrument for achieving sustainable competitive
advantage. The following triumph of the company’s supply chain relies on how
efficiently the firm interacts with its suppliers and how well the company
designs innovative products. A powerful tool of innovation is the adequate use
of information systems in the supply chain. Apple in order to maximize its
profits uses leading technology like big data and cloud computing. To
conclude with, Apple’s supply chain is one of the most efficient globally,
turning inventory into sales every 5 days (!!) placing the company above its
direct competition.
REFERENCE LIST