Assignment - Project Individual

Task: Assessment consists of analytical problems that students need to solve and comment on individually. These problems have been designed to assess the students' capability in solving real world supply chain management problems.

This task involves two parts. First, a review and analysis of an HBR case study allocated to you and second you are required to research and examine industry reports on Supply Chain over the past five years and provide a critique around issues and challenges faced by Supply chains (20 marks) backed by academic robustness.

Further information:

Assessment criteria includes (1) relevance of your answer to the question or task set, (2) clarity of expression, (3) creativity/innovation, (4) citations beyond the given subject material, (5) logical planning and sequence, and (6) appropriate written and/or oral presentation of the work as appropriate.

Part 1: HBR Case Study

Each individual chooses one of the 9 HBR cases from the following list:

1. Reinventing ecommerce: Amazons Bet on unmanned vehicle delivery
2. Fieldfresh foods: Frozen vegetable Business
3. Groundnut value chain in Anantpur: Growing through cooperatives
4. GT Nexus: leader in cloud computing Supply Chain Management
5. Walmart China - Supply Chain Transformation
6. The Dabbawalla System: On time delivery, Every Time
7. Nestle CA: The Nescafe Plan in Australia
8. Sustainable Tea at Unliever
9. McDonald's China : The expired meat scandal

You are asked to choose anyone of the 9 HBR cases. As a basic requirement you will provide a mapping of the existing Supply Chain/Network of the focal firm involved along with its core functions and processes, including analysis and evaluation of the network involved in delivering its products and services to its customers in the context of this case study. Further, you will evaluate and analyse your supply chain and propose a solution to the problem identified in the case study. In this analyses please note any changes that may have occurred in the past 5 years of the business operation, eg. deployment of new technology to deliver services, are intermediaries still an important part of the SC, or have sales moved direct to customer etc. Your recommended solution should take a systemic approach and should propose a disruptive business model underpinned by digital transformation, possibly using the business model canvas, if applicable. Subsequently you will map the new Supply Chain/Network for the focal firm. Specific questions per case study will also be provided soon.

In accessing your information you can refer to the company's website or any other published information relevant to the assignment. It will also be beneficial to use the available academic literature to establish any industry or sector trends, as well academic robustness in your arguments.

Part 2: Research and examine industry reports on Supply Chain over the past five years.

You are expected to obtain at least a dozen industry reports such as readily available reports by PwC, Cap Gemini, McKinsey, IBM or other supply chain reports via the internet. From these reports research and

consolidate risks and challenges faced by global supply chains, and identify barriers and enablers of supply chains. Further, identify areas where Australian firms seem to be facing a shortfall in relevant competencies and capabilities within organisations to manage their supply chains. In this essay discuss the role of supply chain management and advanced technologies (in specific, additive manufacturing or 3D printing etc) together with transition to sustainability. What would be the economic, environmental, and social impacts of adopting advanced technologies on current supply chains?

You should endeavour to use data analytic tools to demonstrate some of the following features:

1. Understanding supply chain excellence
2. Why is planning and designing a supply chain/value network so hard?
3. Supply Chain metrics - does that matter?
4. Identify supply chains that demonstrate best practice
5. Supply chain risk and disruption management
6. Role of digital ubiquity in supply chains
7. Role of ecommerce in service delivery - especially the last mile to the end consumer
8. Why should supply chains be sustainable, and the role of circular economy in sustainable supply chains?

Assignment Submission structure:

The essay should have a clear structure and should have two separate parts for the two components independent of each other but belonging to one assignment. A simple example of structure is as following (This is only an example, I strongly suggest you to be creative and build your own structure that supports your arguments):
1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion
6. References