Supply Chain Management and Raw Materials

Case Study 8. 1 Sedgman Steel * Background * Sedgman Steel Inc. : * North American Co. (diversified) * Annual Sales of $1. 7 billion * Syracuse Plant * Produces cut to length steel tubing and steel sheets to the automotive industry. * Customers provide specs for orders (eg. chemical comp. , thickness, diameter, etc. ) * Raw Materials supplied from 3 sources. * Tubing from sister co. (internally sourced. * Steel coils used for steel sheet production multisourced (2 Co. * Physical Distribution * JIT (Just In Time) to customer base. * Policy * Materials required 2 weeks prior to production * Procurement headed by Director of Materials Management (Isaac Theisen) * Alice McKenzie is the Production Material Control Supervisor * Resposibilities are * Incoming/outcoming transportation * Inventory control * Production planning/scheduling * Fill rates Asked to investigate large amount of current on hand raw materials inventory * Purchase spend made by Syracuse plant was$ 65-75 million/year * P urchasing manager @ facility was closely involved with sales to ensure sales pricing was in line with purchasing costs. * Inventory of raw materials on hand is $20 million * Issues * Too much raw materials inventory on hand * Inventory is piling up rather than beign used as constant rate of production. * Data Analysis * $20 million in raw materials inventory Warehoused next to facility in 50,000 sq ft building * Fehr Logistics Company (FLC) contracted to run inventory and logistics (3PL) * Contract specified # of staff to be employeed and working hours * Alice’s visit * Warehouse is full with both types of raw materials * Trucks waiting to be unloaded * 5 staff working when 8 typically was the regular staff running warehouse operations * Delivery of Raw materials was to be at least 2 weeks prior to production * Customer orders based manufacturing Fehr logistics controlled inbound transportation * Decision Criteria * Lowering Cost * Lowering Amount of inventory * Maintaining p roduction flow * Meet time frame established * Compliance with poilicies * Alternatives * Do nothing * Ensure 8 staff are working warehouse at all times fulfilling FLC’s contract obligations * Suspend buying of raw materials for a short period of time until a good chunk of raw material is used up. Build new purchasing processes for forcasting and shipping requirements from suppliers * Refuse shipments of current PO’s so surplus raw materials can be used up. * Absolve contract with FCL due to lack of competancy and hire a new 3PL to replace of FCL. * Request Return of Good approval from suppliers to get inventory close to optimum production standards. * Assumptions * FLC is not fulfilling their contract obligations * Purchasing has not forcasted correctly or purchased demand amounts in line with production schedules.

Orginizational Development The Process of leading Organizational Essay

Orginizational Development The Process of leading Organizational Change Case Study 6 & 7 - Essay Example The new Hire will work under the Human Resource Management officer generalist. The new employee will focus on career planning, compensation, etc. each group. The client feels the change culture has been managed well at this point. The client, Susan, segregates the Human Resource employees under different functions. The functions include sales and marketing (Paula Washington), Linda Andrews (Software Engineering), and Matthew Williams (Distribution). Each group is helped by a subordinate support team. The new model serves the different internal departments running the entity’s ASP Software business. Each group will have more focus on different assigned tasks. Susan focuses on people reduction to save on salary and other related expenses (Anderson, 2011). In addition, the management team feels happy with the organizational design and culture, especially employee reduction. The company is able to save on salary expenses. The company will save on other related exp enses. Management will increase profits with the reduction. However, the employees have anxiety over the reduction. They feel they may be included among the â€Å"retrenched† employees. The fear change may disadvantage them. The job change will cause stress as the employees learn their new job responsibilities. Susan has done segregating the employees under one homogenous function to improve the quality of its services. One department is called Corporate Functions. Another department is Distribution. A third department is Sales and Marketing (Anderson, 2011). However, Susan should have done differently. Susan should have instituted a brainstorming session. The brain storming session allows all affected persons to contribute their suggestions. Everybody is free to contribute their criticisms and disappointments. An intervention strategy is highly recommended to Susan to improve the current organizational chart’s effectiveness and

Binge Drinking In College Students Research Paper

Binge Drinking In College Students - Research Paper Example The blood- alcohol content in her body during the time of death was 0.52. This was six times more than the legal adult intoxication limit as per the law in California. The girl measured 5 feet 2 inches in height. She weighed about 100 pounds. According to the toxicology report the girl had drank an equivalent of one pint of whiskey in an hour to get to this blood –alcohol content rate. There were more such reports of alcohol related deaths from different campuses in the country during the last three years. These incidents and the series of research reports and surveys that followed prompted this investigation after much pre investigative research .The pre investigative research showed that the issue is wide spread in the United States and it is beyond race and gender among the young school / college students. Thus focusing on gender or race for this investigation seemed meaningless. But still, the investigation included more whites than other races almost at the percentage of 80-20, because the whites are in majority and because the issue is not a racially culture specific .More males were included in the investigation than females as of course males indulged in alcohol abuses more than the females, may be as a part of macho freedom and macho power evidently present in a male dominated society. Most of the youngsters included in the investigation indicated that it is the subculture that exists in the campuses in the United States that leads to alcohol abuses .When fresh students reach the campus, most of them away from home for the first time, they are very cordially invited for free beer parties. The ready availability of cheap alcohol especially beer is another factor that traps students into this drinking sub-culture in the campuses. Availability of cheap alcohol, according to students included in the investigation, tempts them to drink in private settings like dorms and fraternity parties. Alcohol

Case study Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Case study Questions - Essay Example Terra Firma has recently been faced by several challenges such as poor infrastructure as a result of underinvestment, overstaffing and majorly the unpredictable markets for main products like the X-ray machines, CT scanners and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) due to advanced innovations in technology, pressure resulting from competition and regulations made by the government of the United States (US) and Europe. The main problem faced by Terra Firma therefore is market for its major products. Most of these problems can be attributed to poor Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. The company was well grounded in IT until the system crashed and it encountered several problems and incurred so many losses. Terra Firma sought to improve its market for the products by employing several service strategies including investing heavily in IT operations. Due to technology, great innovations came by and other companies were able to outdo Terra Firma thereby giving it a stiff competition. The challenges faced by the Terra company calls for remedies in order for the company to stand out among its competitors. Terra Firma’s market ranges from ‘large medical equipment vendors such as General Electric’s (GE), Siemens, Philips, Hitachi and Toshiba’ (Case competition 2010) Due to the increase in health care risks and costs may companies would go for equipments that are highly effective and are of lower cost. Terra Firma will also be required to look for more markets like single internal customers in addition to the multiple internal customers. Apart from IT operations, Terra Firma could engage in other IT areas like IT security where the company could develop new communication policies and protocols within and without the Terra Company. IT security will also aid in recovery in case of a problem. The other IT area that the

Midterm 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Midterm 1 - Essay Example y to make friends who can lead you through your investigation if an anthropologist identified himself as a freshman as opposed to declaring his mission in his introduction.th factor of age difference between the student at the university and the anthropologist means that there will be communication barrier. The fact that the anthropologist is in a fact finding mission, requires that he employees a disguised identity all along if the mission is to bare any results. An authoritative voice is a voice that speaks more of an insight that is full of self-believe, and disregard for advice from other. Perhaps, a person with an authoritative voice will always define the destiny of a team regardless of the position of the team in the same. Naturally, people are not impressed with being directed to do something especially if they know that it is not right as far as their understanding of the same is concerned. For instance, if a woman fears of her capacity to give birth in the natural way, they will insist on undergoing a caesarian delivery method. The other way it relates to the eight logics is in the commitment students show towards their education, some students may not heed the call to read a chapter before entering a discussion and still insist that they know what they are doing. The ideology that authoritative voices conflict is true in the sense that, anyone who speaks with authority, will want to be the final decision maker and in that regard, consensus is never arrived at under that leadership. Virginity for instance, in some cultures like the Islam, it is highly regarded, and everybody is expected to be a virgin before he/she gets married. While male counterparts from the same religion are not restricted by culture, the same prize seems to be an infringement on the side of the female. Decision on the same is a responsibility of the men in that society which sparks a conflict of interest as to why would someone who is not a virgin be a custodian of the same. While

Institutional Investment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Institutional Investment - Essay Example As compared to other funds that can be termed as passively managed funds, the actively managed funds tend to have a higher expense ratio due to the stock-picking that goes on with this type of portfolio. On the other hand, an index fund is a collective investment scheme focusing on an index movement in the financial market with already set rules that have to remain constant regardless of the market dynamics that are supposedly affecting stock. (Kaushik, 2013, p.1) The tracking in here means it can be approached by holding all securities in the index with the same proportions of the stock being monitored as much statistically sampling the market and holding representative securities. Having the advantage of lower fees, the returns to the investors are few influenced as well as low costs are in the light of taxes. Actively managed equity mutual funds have trillions of dollars in assets, collect tens of billions in management fees, and are the subject of enormous attention from investor s, the press, and researchers; therefore the scrutiny of such funds come from all quarters their active management (Baks, Metrick and Watcher, 2001, p. 43-83). This is due to the fact that they are relevantly required to mature in a shorter period as compared to indexed funds and for years, many experts have been saying that investors would be better off in low-cost passively managed index funds. The brief of the active fund and index fund is two different investment strategy. The former is looking for the market to be misprice securities positively and seek to obtain market performances beyond target. While the later chose a particular index as an investment, not the manifestation of seek the market actively instead of trying to replicate the performance of an index (Philippe, 2002, p. 1-10). According to Jensen (1968, p. 389-400), most studies have found that the universe of mutual funds does not outperform its benchmarks after expenses and this evidence indicates that the average active mutual fund should be avoided hence the preference shifts to the indexed funds for the longer term investments. Other findings reveal that future abnormal returns â€Å"alphas† can be forecast using past returns or alphas, past fund inflows, and manager characteristics such as age, education, and SAT scores which goes a long way in their decision making with regard to financial knowledge. Base on the evidence, those alphas are possible to persistent, and that some managers own positives expectation on alphas as far as about 0.1 percent of all managers in the expectation and none do. Using current data and methods, it is not possible to distinguish between these two possibilities, but at the same time such small differences may have large consequences for investors. There has been rising popularity among the index funds, and this can be attributed to their excellent performance in the long run as they have outperformed their actively managed competitors as a whole. Tak ing a look at the mathematical aspect of the indices, the average active

Week Four Reflection Essay Example for Free

Week Four Reflection Essay Team A will discuss the objective, which consist of analyzing the influence of the debt in the United States economy, and explain the impact that surplus and deficits has on the health of the United States macroeconomy. To analyze the influence of the deficit, surplus, and debt on the health of the United States macroeconomy you have to understand what exactly is deficit and surplus. A deficit is a shortfall of revenues are under payments, and a surplus is the excess of revenues are over payments. The influence of surplus and deficit on the economy differs in the short-term framework and the long-term framework. In a short-term framework the view of deficits and surplus certainly depends on the current state of the U.S. economy relative to the economy potential output. In a long-term framework surpluses are good they provide additional savings for the economy. In a long-term framework deficits are view as bad because they reduce growth, income, and savings, but if the U.S. economy is operating below the potential its deficits is view as good for the economy. This is because deficits increase expenditures increasing the economy output closer to its potential. To understand how debt influences the U.S. economy you have to understand what a debt is. A debt is the accumulated deficit minus the accumulated surplus, where you have surpluses and deficits which are flow concepts or measures that is defined for a certain period in the economy. As an American it is important to always to knowhow debt, surplus, and deficit affect the U.S. economy. This effects the economy from expenditure to every paycheck these transactions affects the flow of the marcoeconomy. This week chapter 17 and 18 covers the importance of surplus, deficit, and debt in depth. It also covers how to finance the deficit as well as viewing deficits and surpluses as a summary measure. Buy knowing what policy directive to follow gives the policy makers the tools to recommend on rather the economy will need a long-term framework approach or a short-term framework approach. In the U.S. economy current condition, if the United States keep spending more than our annually income you can bet that the worse is still to come. References (Macroeconomics 8e, ch17 Author: David C. Colander copyright  © 2010 McGraw-Hill)