Write just the body of an executive summary trying to include as much of the following information as possible. The information is comprise from 6 different individuals on a SCOR model.
The article that the ideas was pulled from is "Improving Financial Performance Of Supply Chain In A Spice Industry" by Sebastian George & Subin George Mathew.
I just need assistance getting this information to flow together. I can handle the introduction and summary.
Supply Chain management is an essential part of a business's survivability, because a business cannot survive without satisfying its customers. Supply activities starts with the customer order and end when the customer is satisfied with his or her order. In regards to supply chain management, it is imperative that businesses develop strategies to improve productivity, reduce cost, and improve quality. Implementing the right strategy can be difficult. Mangers must make sure implementation does not affect quality or productivity. Managers also must be aware of the connections between the business's financial strategy and supply chain performance
The article went over different supply chain methodology implementations and how some can work together to improve the supply chain operation performance. The Supply chain operational research (SCOR) details how business activities deals with satisfying customer's demand, which include planning, sources, producing, delivering, and returning. To achieve long-term financial goals, short-term objective must be measured and monitored. Poor performance areas can be identified and improved by monitoring short-term objectives. Methodologies used in the article's SCOR research to monitor short-term objective were Dempster Shafer/Analytical Hierarchy Processes (DS/AHP) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach (FAHP). DS/AHP model deals with the financial performance of the supply chain, while FAHP model is used to develop, improve, and evaluate performance by identifying poor performance areas of the supply.
Supply chain operational research (SCOR) is a good way for management to judge how they are performing and their customer's responsiveness. I agree and think it is important that business should understand to achieve long-term goals the short-term objectives should be monitored and achieved. Looking at different scenarios can help the supply chain differentiate issues of importance and come up with a plan to fix these issues. Supply chain judgment can be challenging when dealing with deadlines. Cutting corners are issues that supply chain management deal with and struggle to realize if they are ethical or not. The most common occurrences that this can be observed is during a company's good times and bad.
Attached is an article to checkout
The article, "Improving Financial Performance of Supply Chain in a Spice Industry," is focused on testing the extent to which a company or industry's supply chain process performance is relevant to its financial performance and goals. It is often the case that companies rely on their financial outcomes as a method for measuring their overall performance (George & Mathew, 2014). However, it is becoming apparent that this is not an accurate or reliable source for identifying exactly where poor performance is taking place and which areas need improvement. The article proposes a solution to this issue that requires organizations to associate all of their supply chain operations interchangeably with each other. For example, quality control should be connected with production, and both should be in tune with information and finished goods. It is also suggested that the overall financial goals and objectives be broken down into short-term performance goals (George & Mathew, 2014). This will allow the objectives to be more thoroughly analyzed and monitored as well as be more realistically obtained. Essentially, short-term goals provide a closer look at the specific areas within the supply chain operations that need improvement in terms of performance outcomes. So, while financial performance measures are able to exemplify if an organization successfully transformed inputs into outputs, they do not shed any light on how well or efficient the inputs worked together in order to produce the outputs.
This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the supply chain performance of a firm. Methods of analysis include profitability and efficiency using Du Pont Ratio Analysis, and evaluating supply chains by using the operations Fuzzy Analytic approach. According to the article, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach (Fuzzy AHP) and the supply chain operations reference-model (SCOR) is incorporated to evaluate and improve the performance of SC operations. All calculations can be found in tables one through sixteen. Results of data analyzed show the findings revealed that SC operational strategy and the company's overall financial strategy can be aligned through understanding the link between SC performance metrics and financial performance metrics (George &Mathew, 2014).
The math used in this study was complex. Several different analytical approaches were used to identify what this spice company needed to focus on to meet their strategic short-term financial goals. Our text discusses four areas of metrics to focus on when measuring SC performance: Delivery, quality, flexibility and time (Schroeder, Goldstein, & Rungtusanatham, 2013). However, this study looked at five performance attributes through the SCOR Model: Reliability, responsiveness, agility, cost and asset management efficiency. Regardless of the metrics identified, when linking SC performance to financial goals, it is important to do so with clear communication across company activities so each member of the organization is working with the same objective(s) to exploit their potential competitive advantage (Wallingford, 2011). When looking at multiple criteria in decision making, the authors chose to use DS/AHP to identify weights for each criteria after discussing the factors with company experts giving a level of efficiency to the study in the face of competing and complex data points (Dezert, Tacnet, Batton-Hubert, & Smarandache, 2010).
Supply chains vary with efficiency in many areas and are impacted by many outside and inside forces. One of the best things a company can do is to have flexibility built into their supply chain so changes can be identified and executed quickly (Slade , 2017). Waiting for quarterly results to identify issues or successes is no longer an appropriate strategy given the fast-paced business climate. Changes in geopolitical atmospheres can cause havoc if contingency plans aren't thought of in advance with the knowledge that even those plans may need to be adapted to quickly, if they are called upon. Supply chains need to be agile (Slade , 2017).
There are many different metrics that are available to managers to use in today's business climate. Too often, managers are measuring metrics for the sole purpose to be measuring metrics instead of identifying areas that need to be measured to ensure a company's profitability (Gilmore, 2012). Even when the correct metrics are used, managers may set unrealistic or improper goals (Gilmore, 2012). It is important for a company to know what they need to measure in their SC and more importantly, when there is more than one area to improve on, which priority will be given to which attribute. This study laid out a complicated but superior method on how to identify such a plan to ensure process improvements made are in line with company financial goals.
Long-term goals are set in place for longevity and maximum profit. Short term goals are set in place to be able to achieve these long-term goals. Companies implement supply chain objectives to increase financial performance. AHP (Analytical Hierarchal Process) allows management to breakdown decision making elements through various tiers. This aspect is tough on upper management because of the consequences as well as the level of uncertainty that is present it could cause a manager to rethink their decision multiple times. Fuzzy AHP (Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process) and the SCOR (Supply Chain Reference-Model) gives the supply chain the ability to improve and be efficient. Improving the supply chain can give the ability to perform better and be profitable.
4 experts = Human Resources, Production Planning & Control Manager, Export Manager & Project Manager. These sectors are part of the supply chain management that diagnoses problems and identifies improvements. Financial Longevity is the goal and to archive, this goal the stress in upon the supply chain management to evaluate performance profitability and efficiency.
Excellent point on the Fuzzy AHP and SCOR. What I found almost daunting, however, was looking at Fuzzy AHP and Dempster Shafer/Analytical Hierarchy Process (DSmT-AHP) and the intense mathematical formulas used to identify competing processes in order to give weight to those deemed more important than another. Call me simple but when faced with five different attributes, I would have labeled them 1 - 5 and said this is most important, this is least. The way the research and this article laid them out, this was the end result but with more scientific and mathematical precision tied to an identified financial goal and not just my idea or whim.
Dempster Shafer/Analytical Hierarchy Process is a mathematical theory of evidence based on belief functions and plausible reasoning. Rather than using probabilities to represent uncertainties, Dempster-Shafer approach use belief functions to represent uncertainty in the evidential reasoning approach. I agree, the five attributes could be labeled 1-5 to better identify which is more important. I'm guessing naming the attributes will assist down the line to identify which area needs improvement.
A few things jumped out as I read the article.
- Operations cannot become silo'd. Every department or division must understand the financial goals of the company and work with the supply chain to achieve these goals.
- The supply chain is essential to helping any company gain a competitive edge and maintain profitability.
- The supply chain achieves #2 by focusing on four areas: cost, quality, response time, and flexibility.
- The methodology for this SC evaluation includes the FAHP and SCOR models.These models identify processes and sub processes and gives them a "score" for relative importance to the supply chain.
- Understanding performance measures aids operations in meeting financial goals.
What I like about this article was that it took 5 managers from the outset and had them identify what was important to the company in terms of SC attributes in relation to the company's short term financial goals. I thought that this was key that provided validity to the overall study instead of coming in to the company and saying "This is what WE think is important." Medicine has a habit - a bad habit - of saying THIS is the metric to follow, usually set by insurance companies. However, in this article, the authors let the company define what was important.
These are great points that you gathered from the article. In my post, I also talked about the necessity of the organizational divisions working with the supply chain (as you mentioned in number one). However, I more so harped on the relationship between financial goals/objectives and performance measures. I see that in #5, you included "understanding performance measures aids operations in meeting financial goals". This is definitely true, but (for the sake of the discussion) I would like to counter that the roles can be reversed. By this, I simply mean that understanding the financial goals can help to better the performance measures. It is noted in the article that long-term financial goals/objectives should be broken down into different short-term goals. So, by understanding each individual short-term financial goal, a company can better indicate if it is up to par with performance outcome measures or not and if they need to be more efficient.
Bonnie, as usual you have keen eye in pointing out the important points of the article. #5: Understanding performance measures is important in aiding operations in meeting financial goals. Achieving maximum profit is the primary long term financial goal of a company. Jazmin's statement is valid also. Along with the article, Jazmin went a little future to state to achieve long term financial goal, the company should convert it into short term performance objectives that can be measured and monitored. Focusing on short term objectives can identify where poor performances exist, which then can be taken care of before they become a bigger issue.