Problems with some of your current suppliers have caused your organization to consider alternative options in procurement. Your boss has asked you to prepare a brief detailing the options available to your organization, including the use of e-procurement and e-sourcing. What should be included in your brief?
When it comes to procurement and related issues, the use of modern media is often mentioned. With the help of new media, a number of logistics issues can be resolved efficiently. The brief must include the following elements:
- Choice of transportation company (online comparison of companies productivity);
- Evaluation of transportation costs (use of corresponding online calculators);
- Consideration of the most convenient route;
- Definition of the specifics of the goods (e.g., fragility, shelf life, etc., along with the provision of online tables allowing for automatic data adjustment and, therefore, enhanced evaluation process);
- Choice of means of transportation based on goods specifics (using media as the means to consider all possible options and correlate them to the specifics of the products that need to be transported, therefore, choosing the optimum alternative);
- Choice of the route with regard to the possible obstacles (e.g., length, unevenness of the ground – important for fragile goods, possible delays, etc.)
With the help of new media and the strategies provided in e-procurement, more opportunities for information management and sharing can be used, which will help improve the procurement issues. As for e-sourcing, the negotiation process can be enhanced efficiently once new media is used to facilitate the process. That being said, the brief must incorporate the issues regarding transportation, communication, and product distribution.
Production has fallen behind the demand. Your job is to find out why. Where do you begin? What options do you have in implementing changes that may be necessary? How can information technology be incorporated to streamline strategies in procurement and planning? Explain.
The production process depends on a number of variables. Therefore, the reasons for production rates to drop are quite numerous. To figure out what exactly slackens the production process, it is required to consider the following processes:
- information management
- Improving communication system;
- inbound and outbound logistics
- Reconsidering transportation issues;
- procurement
Analyzing the issues with supply (transportation, quality of obtained goods, possible delays) and making sure that the transportation process should be carried out properly;
- planning
Improving the schedule of goods and raw materials delivery;
- analysis of demand
Considering the needs of the TA;
- pre-production panning
Evaluating the possibilities;
- equipment quality;
Using advanced technology for communication with suppliers and production processes.
As soon as the source of the problem is located, it is necessary to address it properly. In most cases, two options are possible when it comes to production process change, i.e., 1) using the existing resources to solve the existing issue, while the rest of the elements of the production process are run on a minimum of allowed resources; 2) enhancing the rest of the elements in order to make up for the one that holds production down. While when facing a serious lack of time, one would resort to the second option, in most cases, the first alternative seems the most reasonable.