Various Aspects of Supply

Various Aspects of Supply

Introduction

A supply chain organization is an important part of connecting the various stakeholders – people, activities, and resources – for efficient delivery of goods and services. Manufacturing, sales, and other sourcing activities are integrated into the process. We shall analyze some of the perspectives that have shaped the supply chain in recent decades.

Discussion

Adopting Lean and JIT

Lean is a model of manufacturing that is highly associated with Toyota Motor Company (Pekuri et al., 2014). The model aims at the gradual development of the efficiency of a system by the elimination of wastes. Wastes are the human activities that use up resources yet lead to the actual value. Some perspectives contribute to waste. They include the excess and early production and delays caused in the process. In this case, delays refer to lost waiting time for raw materials whereas early and excess production leads to waste by capturing resources early on in the production period which assumes the risk of changing consumer tastes and preferences. One of the key principles of lean is the use of just-in-time inventory management. This inventory management aims at making raw materials available in the minimum quantity required while automated activities are supervised by workers and any downtime is minimized.

Various economic shifts have necessitated the adoption of lean manufacturing by organizations across the world. The global environment has been shifting to globalization at a fast rate. This is leading to increased competition for businesses. One of the ways of gaining a competitive advantage is by increasing the efficiency of the manufacturing processes to suit the demands of the users. As such, organizations have to adopt flexible and delivery-oriented manufacturing practices. At the same time, organizations have to maintain the same quality of products and services. The delivery times across the globe have to be minimum while being aware of the issues affecting customer demands across the world.

Waste to be Aware of

Seven types of waste are important for organizations to understand. To begin with, there is transportation waste (Everlean, 2018). This is waste that results from the movement of materials and goods between locations. Unnecessary movements in the process may lead to wastes. Inventory waste takes place where there are resources held in the form of work-in-progress, raw materials, or finished goods that are not sold. This is often caused by having an excess of materials. Motion is a waste process that is caused by the unwarranted movement of machinery and employees in the production process. Waiting is a waste that results from time lost as a result of idleness. Idle time can result from poorly synchronized processes.

Wastes can also result from over-processing. This occurs where a product or a service contains more than the desired amount of value that a customer wants. This results from putting more material or utility in a product than is necessary. Over-production is a waste that results from having more products than can be consumed by the consumer. The company can get this as a result of high quantity production within a short period with no observance of the demand rates. Defects in products may require the company to recall or deploy staff and resources to rectify the error. This results from mistakes or the use of poor quality goods in production.

Benefits across the Value Chain

Several advantages have made the lean model to be widely used by companies. To begin with, there is an increased quality of products. This is made possible by allowing an organization to have free resources to utilize in innovation. There is also improved by allowing flexibility to respond to changing consumer needs and wants. Due to the waste reduction practices, there is increased sustainability which allows businesses to be better equipped to deal with future eventualities. The satisfaction of employees is also increased as the employees direct their efforts to work that are highly productive which also, in turn, leads to increased profits for the organization.

A key factor that favors the use of lean manufacturing principles is enhanced customer relations practices. The lean manufacturing system looks at having the needs of the consumers being met sustainably. This is a measure that focuses on meeting the needs of loyal customers over general customer needs. By doing so, lean enables a closer relationship across the supply chain that requires raw material providers, manufacturers, warehousing facilities, transporters, and retailers to have a focus on the delivery of customer-oriented services. The use of lean manufacturing systems also allows for the use of lean infrastructures such as supplies, equipment, and labor that looks at the near-term demand-driven provision of goods and services.

Coronavirus Epidemic and the Agile Methodology

The agile methodology is appropriate for use in the COVID-19 epidemic. One of the key aspects of the agile methodology is the use of scrum teams. These teams have specific values that are aimed at meeting the changing needs of the requirements. One of the key values of the scrum process is the delivery of services within the shortest time. The scrum approach allows for incremental builds for the delivery of goods and services. This is ideal in the condition of the COVID-19 outbreak as the needs of the consumers may vary greatly within a short period. As such, it is possible to institute necessary changes that may arise due to the varying needs of consumer demands.

During the epidemic, there is a high need for social distancing. This is a fact that requires people to keep their distance. The use of social distancing means that there is little room for the supervision of activities. Through scrum as an agile methodology, people can work remotely with minimal supervision as one of the values is self-organization. Moreover, the flexibility of the approach allows for quick changes in response to changes. Scrum teams have little reliance on team leaders and as such, allow for problem-solving and openness (Vajaria, 2020) with minimum consultations which reduce the reaction team. Collaboration is the final value that makes scrum highly advantageous. Various professionals can utilize their skills to develop solutions that are holistic and sustainable in the crisis.

                                                            Conclusion

In conclusion, a lean process is an important approach that has been adopted by companies to deal with various challenges being presented by the evolving environment. The lean approach allows for dealing with various wastes that result from production processes. In a time of the epidemic, the use of the agile methodology is advantageous as it allows the organizations to utilize some of the scrum values that are important for dealing with shifting changes. Moreover, inter-professional collaboration is possible which leads to better development of sustainable solutions. The ability to exercise self-organization is particularly more important in the situation presented by COVID-19 as there is minimal supervision.

References

Everlean (2018). 7 Types of Waste. Retrieved from https://www.everlean.de/en/7-types-of-waste/

Pekuri, A., Pekuri, L., Haapasalo, H. (2014). Lean as a business model. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265176149_Lean_as_a_business_model

Vajaria, R. (2020). How the Scrum Values Could Help us Cope with COVID-19 Outbreak. Retrieved from https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/how-scrum-values-could-help-us-cope-covid-19-outbreak