The problem of Bullwhip effect in supply chain management has always been a concern for many years. Due to its non industry specific nature, it has grabbed the attention of many professionals from diverse industries and business schools. Bullwhip effect as its name suggests is an oscillation in the chain or pipeline. In supply chain this effect occurs when there is a constant fluctuation in the demand. In-congruence in the information leads to its distortion thereby creating a bullwhip. The expression “Bullwhip Effect” was termed by executives of P&G, the company that manufactures Pamper brand of diapers. These executives observed that while the consumer demand for Pamper’s Diapers was fairly constant over time, the orders for diapers placed by retailers to their wholesalers or distributors were quite variable i.e., exhibited significant fluctuations over time. In addition, even larger variations in order quantities were observed in the orders that P&G received Continue reading
Supply Chain Management Concepts
Postponement Strategy in Supply Chain Management
Postponement is first implemented in manufacturing processes to reduce cost of inventory and improve service level within the company while the product variety increases. The concept of postponement is to delay the change in form, identity and place to the latest possible point until customer commitments have been obtained. It is by exploiting the commonality between items and by designing the production and distribution process so as to delay the point of differentiation. Postponement is closely intertwined with modularization where products in a certain product family are designed where all of them consist of different standardized units. With modularization, combination of different standardized sub-components allows the producing of different end products. The form, function and place of the product are altered and is in contra with the push systems in which goods are manufactured entirely in anticipation of future customer orders and stored downstream without customer’s formulated specifications. Postponement is Continue reading