Review of the article “Disney debuts do-it-yourself thrill ride” and a correlation to the Chapter 8

The article “Beware, Humans. The Era of Automation Software has begun” published in the New York Times, talked about the use of software systems in business. The article mainly focused on Hp and the computer software they use to help strengthen their business. the article made the point that humans make errors but not technology. The article also said that in the near future technology will automate many tasks that were once accomplished by humans. Well the article aims towards the idea that data systems are more efficient and cheaper then hiring new employees, it also points out that humans ere necessary. The art of running an efficient company is to find that balance of technology systems and employee head counts. Using the software at HP has cut costs bringing HP to 13.8 percent in operating margins.
This article relates to the book because it brings up the argument of Operational management and how it can benefit a company. It also relates to the book because it shows how information systems relates to business.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/beware-humans-the-era-of-automation-software-has-begun/?scp=6&sq=operations%20management&st=cse

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

How Green Is Apple: Cleaning the Supply Chain

Apple like many companies, outsources part of their manufacturing to other countries. By doing so, it makes it harder for apple to keep track of how their products might be harming the environment.  What apple does is designs the systems but outsourcing the assembly to contract manufacturers. Their original design manufacturers are located in the mainland of China; where it is cheaper to produce do to cheaper labor.  About 95% of all laptops are manufactured in China, and 85% of those are produced by a handful of companies many have never heard of.

            In order for apple to be in compliance with their supplier code of conduct, apple audits all of its suppliers and then provided this information to its customers on their website. Even though Apple strived to clean up its supply, chain it ranked 10^th on “Guide to Greener Electronics”, among major electronics manufacturers. It earned 4.7 points out of a possible 10, a dramatically lower than major competitors.

            Many companies do not audit their outsourcing company but Apple does, and even though they do not have such a good score they are still peruse greener technology. They do not have a timeline of when this will occur but as being one of the top fortune 500 companies, we know they will.

            This has to do with chapter 8 because it talks about the Apples supply chain and how they strive to maintain it as green as possible. Even though they are a very strong company it is still difficult for them to maintain the chain green and still have competitive prices.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163608/how_green_is_apple_cleaning_the_supply_chain.html%20on%20Oct.%2015th,%202009.

In an article from BusinesWire.com, “Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. Chooses ArrowStream Supply Chain Management Solutions to Gain Efficiencies, Savings,” the discussions is regarding Einstein Noah Restaurant Group(ENRGI) enhancing its supply chain management operations by agreeing to do business with ArrowStream, a leading provider of supply chain solutions for the foodservice industry.

ENRGI choose ArrowStream’s software system, OnDemand due to its ability to help the company’s improve the bottom line and improve its cost savings. With OnDemand, ENRGI will be synchronized with ArrowStream’s distribution network and trading partners, allowing for more informed inventory management decisions, promotions management, and accurate spend rationalization(“Einstein Noah,” 2009).

By ENRGI switching to OnDemand, ENGRI is simply adapting to current partners technology. With 80 percent of ENRGI’s partners already participating in ArrowStream’s Network, ENRGI will quickly be able to take advantage of their new software solution. ENRGI’s goals to reduce category spend, control price variance, have less stock outs and rely less their current inefficient manual process helping to better control costs and implement improvements.

The article relates to Ch. 8, “Operations Management and Supply Chain Management,” because it deals with ENRGI implementing new supply chain management software that will improve its overall business operations. OnDemand will give ENRGI a boost to their overall business operations and allow for more accurate decision making that will benefit everyone from the suppliers to the customers by offering quicker service.

Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. Chooses ArrowStream Supply Chain Management Solutions to Gain Efficiencies, Savings. Retrieved on October 15, 2009 from http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20091013006087&newsLang=en

How Green Is Apple: Cleaning the Supply Chain

This article relates to an unusual aspect of supply chain management: the environment and guilt by association. Apple is the main company being discussed here, but essentially all major computer manufacturers (Original Equipment Manufacturers, OEM) outsource the physical construction of their systems. Like Dell in the chapter’s case example, most of Apple’s suppliers are in Taiwan and/or China, which can make it expensive and difficult to ensure that conditions and product quality are up to the standards of Apple’s policies.

As a group, OEMs often come under fire due to the environmental impact of improperly discarded electronics equipment. Everything from monitors to motherboards can be seriously damaging to the environment, due to the materials released as the item breaks down and the sheer length of time it can take plastics and silicon to break down into natural compounds.

Apple was rated ahead of major competitors Dell and HP, because it’s making a visible effort to reduce or eliminate particularly harmful compounds, like PVCs, from its products, a move environmental watchdog groups support. However, these groups are also interested in the environmental impact of Apple’s own corporate operations, data that Apple execs have been keeping under their hats. This information includes things like a greenhouse gas inventory, fossil fuel use, and waste recycling.

The article ends by saying Apple does in fact release most of the information the watchdog groups want, if not in the same way they’d like it (cough, easy to read, cough), and questions how recent their studies are. So perhaps Apple is cleaning up all over!

Bertolucci, Jeff. “How Green is Apple: Cleaning the Supply Chain” Macworld.com, April 22nd, 2009. (Mac Publishing LLC, 2009). Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163608/how_green_is_apple_cleaning_the_supply_chain.html on Oct. 15th, 2009.

This chapter is about operation management and supply chain management that are important in business and information technology. In this article, it explains and represents global supply chain, based on china. China is the biggest country and has huge population, so it takes a significant role in global supply chain. Thus, it affects supply chain a lot and it is affected by global situation.
When it happen global situation, china’s supply chain becomes bad and terrible, that this article explains well. According to the article, China’s hopes for a immediate export recovery from the global crisis could be destabilized by the weakest links in its powerful supply chain – smaller companies too damaged by the downturn and credit crisis to get goods to market. As collapsing sales to recession-hit Western markets consider on China’s economy, bankruptcies pose a growing risk to its export machine, threatening everyone from suppliers of crucial parts and materials to companies that transport finished products. Struggling Chinese exporters are facing higher costs and need to keep closer checks on suppliers, and a shrinking pool of financially healthy companies to deal with is limiting their vaunted flexibility, slowing down delivery times. Also, one of represent of supplier said they tried to find an alternative source that could offer the same quality and delivery.
We could learn about the supply chain that consists of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in the procurement of a product or raw material. It includes supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailer, and customer. They are all important to do supply chain management well. I think one of the participants has suffered from some problems and it effects the others, so we need to care about this point.

Article resources – NY times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-yuan.2.20615197.html?scp=1&sq=supply%20chain%20manage&st=cse

Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ch. 8 IS in business

Many of us do not imagine ourselves ridding a bicycle to work, or even to school. We would rather drive and get where we are going faster. What if there was a bike that could get you where you wanted faster than a regular bike, and with less work? There is now, e bikes. What is an e bike you may be thinking? It is basically like a traditional bike but is equipped with a small motor that power the bike and assist the rider with pedaling. These bikes reduce the sweat it takes to go over hills and far distances and is better for the environment too.
E bikes are popular in Europe and China, with over 100 million in China, but are new to the United States. Many believe it may take a while for Americans to mentally shift their perspectives of bike riding as a main source of transportation. Ultra Motor US hopes to change this in the near future. They are planning on three types of customers; those active adults who have gotten a bit too old to ride a traditional bike, those who would like to help out the environment, and many who don’t want to pay to fuel up their SUV’s in the future when oil prices are high.
Other companies are now jumping on the e bike train, seeing a gold mine in the future. 200,000 e bikes were sold last year. Though sales have dropped this year, because of the economy, many companies still see them as a good idea for future production. There were more than 20 companies producing e bikes this year, which is a jump from only 5 last year.
e bikes range from a few hundred dollars, like the E ip Trailz hybrid, which is 398 at wal mart, to more than 13,000 for the top of the line models. Prices increase as battery technology and components get better.
I think this article related to the topic of supply chain mainly because these companies are thinking of the competitive OM strategy, making low cost bikes and high cost bikes, seeking out their competition (ordinary bikes) and for seeing the future (oil prices going up) with these factors the e bike business could be very successful. We could all be riding e bikes in the future.
Almasy S. (2009) Will e-bikes be the new commuter cool?
retreived October 15, 2009 from the cnn.com/tech website:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/electric.bicycles/index.html

Posted by Angela Barrientos at 9:58

I recently found an article written by, Douglas Macmillion, discussing the merger of Whirlpool with Maytag and the effects it has on each companies supply chain. About a year ago, appliance mogul Whirlpool bought out the other appliance major Maytag. The difficulty with this merger was the pure size of the two companies. Maytag was already a very large company that had factories and distribution centers all over the US. The first thing Whirlpool noticed about Maytag was how outdated their supply chain was. Maytag was living in the past with how they distributed their appliances. Maytag was producing far too many machines and keeping them in storage at retail stores. For an appliance company staying ahead is the name of the game. Maytag was producing more machines then could be sold which was costing them money. Whirlpool acknowledged this problem and took steps to fix it.

A change has occured in the American marketplace with concerns to the appliance industry. In the past customers only purchased new appliances rarely because their cost and relative difficulty to move. Now trends are showing appliances are bought more commonly, not because the old ones are broken but because there is a new product available that appeals to the consumer.

Whirlpools solution was to pare back from keeping large supplies at the retail stores and set up more distribution centers that could track and speed the delivery process up incredibly. They called this “Schedule Actualization”. A year later Whirlpool plans to have closed 100 facilities and has completed the construction of 10 new distribution facilities. They are hoping by the end of this year to have saved 60 million in the changes made to their supply chain.

Macmilan, Douglas. The Issue: Whirlpool ZCleans Up It’s Supply Chain. Business Weekly. October 24, 2008.

Making electric cars smarter

Stephanie Mehta’s article entitled Making electric cars smarter is about a man named Shai Agassi that founded a company called Better Place. It is a company that is building a network of charging and battery-switch stations for electric cars.

Agassi’s former job was a software engineer for a company called SAP. He founded Better Place to fuse information technology with the automobile manufacturing business. His idea was to produce cars with the best technology as opposed to using the cheapest. The automobile industry hasn’t been “disrupted” for 100 years and Agassi would like to change that. The disruption is new technology.

He is making technology that helps with modern electric cars. One of the problems facing electric cars is when to charge the battery. Like getting gas, it is not always convenient. His software would learn your driving habits/schedule, talk to the network system, and figure out the best time to recharge the car. Also, just like “apps” on iPhones, they heading in that direction for cars as well with things like possibly CarTunes.

It applies to chapter 8 of the textbook entitled Operations Management and Supply Chain Management in that it is helping with operations management. As operations management is about taking inputs, transforming them, and producing outputs that are greater than the cost of the inputs, the technology that is proposed will do just that. Normally things like sheet steel, engine parts, and tires will go in as inputs, but modern technology features will greatly increase the “value-added”.

Mehta, S. (2009) Making electric cars smarter, Fortune. Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/14/technology/better_place_agassi.fortune/index.h tm

A British business reported this week that because of improvement in their supply chain, they have increased sales. Sainsbury reported total sales for the first half of the year increased 7.1% and weekly transactions were up 4% from last year. They credit this increase to the new supply management procedures. Sainsbury has implemented a new system in which information about what is sold go straight from the register to the warehouse in real time. As soon as a product is sold, the warehouse in notified. This lets the warehouse keep track of what products need to be restock and at which store lactations. This keeps the stores fully stocked, and therefore increases sales.

This related to the chapter because is deals with operation and supply chain management. With the help of IT this store can communicate between departments and keep shelves stocked and customers happy. This all refers to the supply chain logistics section of the chapter.

With this information, management and suppliers can also see what types of products are selling the best and worst. They can determine if two products are frequently bought at the same time. All this information can help management to determine where to place products throughout the store. It can also suggest which products should be put on sale or clearance.

Heath, N. (2009) How Sainsbury Beat the Blues with Technology. Retrieved October 14, 2009, from Business Week.
WEB: WWW.Businessweek.com/globalbiz

According to Ivanka Trump, when you’re starting up a company or taking over a company, whatever it is that you are looking or planning to do, make, or sell to your customers, it is crucial that you build your business on the assumption that you can do it smarter, better and more efficiently than your competitors. If you don’t think that way then what is the point? It will be very hard for you to survive in the business world. This week’s chapter reading refers to operations management and supply chain management. I chose an article from the online Business Week newsletters regarding competitive strategies and Ivanka Trump’s strategies on building a brand for your products. According to the textbook, the five key competitive priorities are cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, and service. With the article on Ivanka’s new jewelry collection, she shares her notes on what you need to do to launch a successful new business, product or service. She shares with us her top ten steps that should be followed to be successful. The ten steps include: Doing a comprehensive trademark search, develop a powerful identifier, do not confuse supply with demand, identify the void in your market and position your brand so that you uniquely fill it, create a strong and consistent identity, define your market, make sure your team understands your mission, your vision, and your objectives, focus on customer service, foster brand loyalty at every opportunity,and hold off spending whenever possible. A lot of what I was reading related a lot to what I’m learning in my business classes especially marketing. Creating a successful company ultimately comes down to how well you market yourself. Ivanka also goes on to talk about creating a phone system that allows you to connect yourself to customers. She’s done well on connecting with her customers over the phone and seeing how the service was for randomly chosen customers. She also talks about the operations of the hotels that her family runs and always relating it back to her steps mentioned and staying on top of the technology world too.

In this article, the electronic company Philips declared that they are doing a recall on about 5,400 HeartStart FR2 automated defibrillators. The recall was due to a possible memory chip failure that can possibly make the device unable to function properly. The HeartStart are used by trained responders and designated response teams to help treat sudden cardiac arrest.
The Dutch company, had no reports of any injuries involving the product. They stated that the product defect was an internal compnay test. There are only certain models that can be recalled the models that can be recalled were manufactured in May 2007 to January of 2008. The website of Philips can indentify which model specifically can be recalled.
This product was purchased by fire departments, emergency medical service people, hospitals and other groups across the world. Philips is actually contact customers for the return and replacement for all the recalled HeartStart by sending notifications to distributors and users.
In this week’s chapters, it dealt with supply chain management and one of the basic four components of the supply chain management system is supply chain logistics. The supply chain logistics deals with the product delivery, warehouse, orders, carriers, and defective product returns, and invoice. This whole article deals primarily with that. Philips is doing recall on their products therefore they need a supply chain logistics team to help out with the carriers of this defective product and the returns on it. They would have to go through the invoice of each purchase when they contact the distributors and the users of the product to inform them about the recall. Without a supply chain logistics team they would not have gotten through as effeciently as they have through the recall process.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9B0KD9G1.htm

For Chapter 8 I found an article in which IBM conducted a survey on over 400 senior executives from many different countries about their supply chain management. In the article it stated that supply chain management is growing increasingly which means there is more room for disruption and shocks. If one is not careful they can cause a chain of mishaps from network to network.

In conducting their survey they found five key elements that are putting executives in charge of the supply chain under great pressure and stress. According to IBM’s survey these key elements include; Cost containment, Visibility, Risk, Customer Intimacy, and Globalization. The constant changing is challenging the executives to adapt to each aspect while the constant piling of information is making it a tough decision for an executive to choose the right information. As the senior executives are dealing with these problems they are also having to keep in mind the risks at hand which the CFO’s are also having to deal with. Risk management is the highest ranking concern on the senior executives plate. Even with all the growing demand companies are still better connected with their suppliers than their customers and globalization has only led to revenue growth more so than cost savings.

Current research has shown IBM that supply chain need to not only be efficient, and demand-driven but they also need to be smart. IBM believes they need a supply chain that is much more instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. However to achieve this goal it involves strategy and a different set of responsibilities for senior executives to take on.

2009 February, “The Smarter Supply Chain of the Future” Retrieved from IBM.com. 18 October 2009. Website: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/xb/n/gbe03183usen/GBE03183USEN.PDF

This chapter talks a lot about supply chain management and how it affects a business’s bottom line and also the customer receiving the goods or service. A recent survey was conducted by researchers at the University of Arkansas and found that the healthcare industry is in dire need of supply chain management. Heather Nachtmann, who conducted the survey, said, “…the healthcare supply chain is starved for accurate and accessible data, which are the primary barriers to efficiency, collaboration and standardization.” Nachtmann goes on further to note that on average a healthcare provider spent $72 million a year on supply chain related functions. This was a whopping one-third of the providers operating budget. Almost half those surveyed admitted that their provider’s supply chain was unstructured. It lacked definition of supply chain management process and much of it was not documented with no methods of process measurements in place. The need to implement a supply chain management system that would explicitly define process, tackle logistical issues and measure process is obvious. It is believed that this problem is one of the key drivers of healthcare costs today. By implementing a supply chain management system that is efficient and effect this will reduce the amount of money wasted on operating costs. This will, however, involve getting the manufacturers, distributors and providers to use the same supply chain management system to identify everything from scalpels to cups of jello-o. This should garner savings in operations and turn will translate into reduced healthcare costs to the patients.
Drug Store News. (2009). Survey finds healthcare supply chain needs improvement. Retrieved October , 15 2009 From http://drugstorenews.com/%28S%282pl54nfnqqnpeiraxdw3swjp%29%29/story.aspx?id=119085&menuid=335

The article dealt with Dell and how it has named their notebooks and netbooks. Though netbooks once were seen as the more portable ones, things have changed recently. Newer, smaller, slimmer, notebooks are now almost the same size as the netbooks. The capabilities are also not too different. The smaller notebooks are just slightly bigger, one inch, hold a bit more memory, and have a Windows operating system. However, netbooks are actually going to have this capability too. Windows XP, which is not used anymore on newer computers, is being offered on netbooks. This gives consumers an operating system in which they are already comfortable. Since both the netbooks and notebooks are now so similar, why do they have different names? The article suggests it is because companies like Dell want to be able to separate the two to be able to sell enough of both. The netbooks are a little cheaper and now quite trendy so they are trying to sell them. The problem is that if the netbook is selling well, the market for notebooks decreases. Dell has to be able to produce both of them, as well as make a profit out of each of them. That is why notebooks are becoming smaller. Dell wants to make them more available for more people.
This relates to the chapter referring to competitive operating management strategy. Dell is trying to determine the cost of both the netbook and notebook to figure out which one will be more profitable. Quality matters, which is why there are many different types of both netbooks and notebooks. Dell is trying to figure out if they can reduce the size of the notebook while maintaining quality. Dell is also making the notebook very flexible. They are trying to keep the quality of larger notebooks, while making it look like a smaller netbook.

Ogg, Erica (2009) “Time to drop the Netbook label” October 15, 2009 From: Cnet website:http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/08/20/cnet.drop.netbook.label/index.html

Microsoft is coming out with two new phones on October 14. The names of the phones are Pure and HTC tilt 2. The phones are going to be provided with service by AT&T. The phone will be competing with all the other smart phones on the market and it is entering a fairly well established market. Microsoft will need a niche to really pull through in the market. Microsoft hopes to make the case that the devices are not only worthy phones, but also the best option for those who want to take their Windows world with them. The phone offers Adobe Flash support, an improved browser, and menus that are easier to navigate with a finger. Users will be able to download apps directly from the developer. They need to imitate the iPhone app process because they need to reach out to the ones who are not technology savy. They offer thousands of apps and they are all available to pick and choose. Microsoft is also offering a Find-your-Phone application. They are charging $5 per use that competes with the $99 annual fee for the service from Apple. This makes it cheaper and less of a commitment for the user.
Microsoft is a strong name to put behind a smart phone. They have a loyal customer base and I think they can compete. If they want to the managers and top officials of the company must create reliable service and easy to use advancements in the technology. They are having AT&T provide it and it they have the lowest smart phone customer service ranking of all of them. They may want to consider it when listening to customer demands.

Having a supplier’s contract with Wal-Mart has advantage and cost to it, suppliers should consider before applying for the contract. The advantage of supplying to Wal-Mart is that they have a wide base customers and a large corporation that will not order and not pay for it. The cost of supplying to Wal-Mart is that they only accept the lowest price and best quality out of the lowest price. This means that suppliers will not be able to profit much compare to selling to other companies. Wal-Mart also requires suppliers to have at least three other entities including Wal-Mart to prove that the supplier knows about their own market.
Wal-Mart has about 57,000 US suppliers, usually a few suppliers for a same type of product to provide customers variety of choice. Wal-Mart generally starts out smaller suppliers in a local market, delivering goods to up to 50 stores, as a test run. If the supplier provides a high-selling product and proves reliable, it might be considered for national distribution. As most of us know, Wal-Mart’s return policy is great. However, Wal-Mart does not take the lost of the returned products, they transfer it to their suppliers. In Wal-Mart’s supplier contract, the supplier has to take the lost of the returned products. Many suppliers did not read and understand fully the long contract rules before signing the contract with Wal-Mart.
In my opinion, a company that can survive supplying to corporations like Wal-Mart is on the right track. Despite the high cost of supplying to Wal-Mart, the company becomes more competitive and their brand will be more popular because of Wal-Mart’s wide base customers. A supplier becomes a top company when they sell their product to the best of the best corporations.

Reference:
Emily Schmitt.July 14, 2009. The Profits and Perils of Supplying to Wal-Mart. Business Week.

Retrieved from:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2009/sb20090714_270767.htm