what makes retailers the most important in the distribution channel
Other roles of people in distribution channel
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plz solve this question..
Jan Northcutt, owner of Northcutt Bikes, started business in 1995 when she noticed the quality of bikes she purchased for sale in her bike shop declining while the prices went up. She also found it more difficult to obtain the features she wanted on ordered bikes without waiting for months. Her
frustration turned to a determination to build her own bikes to her particular customer specification.She began by buying all the necessary parts (frames, seats, tires, etc.) and assembling them in a rented garage using two helpers. As the word spread about her shop’s responsiveness to options, delivery, and quality, however, the individual customer base grew to include other bike shops in the area. As her business grew and demanded more of her attention, she soon found it necessary to sell the bike shop itself and concentrate on the production of bikes from a fairly large leased factory space.
As the business continued to grow, she backward integrated more and more processes into her operation, so that now she purchases less than 50% of the component value of the manufactured bikes. This not only improves her control of production quality but also helps her control the costs of production and makes the final product more cost attractive to her customers.
The Current Situation:
Jan considers herself a hands-on manager and has typically used her intuition and her knowledge of the market to anticipate production needs. Since one of her founding principles was rapid and reliable delivery to customer specification, she felt she needed to begin production of the basic parts for each particular style of bike well in advance of demand. In that way she could have the basic frame, wheels, and standard accessories started in production prior to the recognition of actual demand, leaving only the optional add-ons to assemble once the order came in. Her turnaround time for an order of less than half the industry average is considered a major strategic advantage, and she feels it is vital for her to maintain or even improve on response time if she is to maintain her successful operation.
As the customer base has grown, however, the number of customers Jan knows personally has shrunk significantly as a percentage of the total customer base for Northcutt Bikes, and many of these new customers are expecting or even demanding very short response times, as that is what
attracted them to Northcutt Bikes in the first place. This condition, in addition to the volatility of overall demand, has put a strain on capacity planning. She finds that at times there is a lot of idle time (adding significantly to costs), whereas at other times the demand exceeds capacity and hurts
customer response time. The production facility has therefore turned to trying to project demand
for certain models and actually building a finished goods inventory of those models. This has not
proven to be too satisfactory, as it has actually hurt costs and some response times. Reasons include
the following:
• The finished goods inventory is often not the “right” inventory, meaning shortages for some goods and excessive inventory of others. This condition both hurts responsiveness and increases inventory costs.
• Often to help maintain responsiveness, inventory is withdrawn from finished goods and reworked, adding to product cost.
• Reworking inventory uses valuable capacity for other customer orders, again resulting in poorer response times and/or increased costs due to expediting.
Existing production orders and rework orders are both competing for vital equipment and resources during times of high demand, and scheduling has become a nightmare. The inventory problem has grown to the point that additional storage space is needed, and that is a cost that Jan would like to
avoid if possible. Another problem Jan faces is the volatility of demand for bikes. Since she is worried about unproductive idle time and yet does not wish to lay off her workers during times of low demand, she has allowed them to continue to work steadily and build finished goods. This makes the problem of building the “right” finished goods even more important, especially given the tight availability of storage space.
PAST DEMAND:
The following shows the monthly demand for one major product line: the standard 26-inch 10- speed street bike. Although it is only one of Jan’s products, it is representative of most of the major product lines currently being produced by Northcutt Bikes. If Jan can find a way to use this data
to more constructively understand her demand, she feels she can probably use the same methodologies to project demand for other major product families. Such knowledge can allow her,she feels, to plan more effectively and continue to be responsive while still controlling costs.
Month 2017 2018 2019 2020
January 437 712 613 701
February 605 732 984 1291
March 722 829 812 1162
April 893 992 1218 1088
May 901 1148 1187 1497
June 1311 1552 1430 1781
July 1055 927 1392 1843
August 975 1284 1481 839
September 822 1118 940 1273
October 893 737 994 912
November 599 983 807 996
December 608 872 527 792
Tasks
- Plot the data and describe what you see. What does it mean and how would you use theinformation from the plot to help you develop a forecast?
- Use 4 months simple and weighted moving average to develop a forecast for the next four months’ demand.
- If the exponential smoothing forecast of the Dec 2020 is 900 units, what would be the next four months’ forecast if alpha = 0.7. The actual demand of the next three month turns out to be 830, 1328, 927.
- For the next four months, which method from question 2 is “better”? How do you know that?
- How, if at all, could we use Jan’s knowledge of the market to improve the forecast? Would it be better to forecast in quarterly increments instead of monthly? Why or why not?
- Calculate seasonal index of each month based on the given table data.
- What would be the expected demand of bikes in the coming year each month, using calculated seasonal index, if expected annual demand of bikes is 20,000 units.
- Are there other possible approaches that might improve Jan’s operation and situation?What would they be and how could they help?
- How could Jan’s improve its operational capability and capacity to produce more number of units? Suggest possible ways to improve.
0
Does the Flame Electrical's computerlied stem comply with software Imperatives?
This question belong to the Flames Electrical Inventory management case.
https://fba.aiub.edu/Files/Uploads/OPM110020.pdf
0
Solve the following LPP using simplex method
MaxZ=9_x_1 +7_x_2
Subject to:
_2x_1+ x2 ++<++ 40
_x_1+ 3x2 ++<++ 30
_x_1, _x_2 ++>++ 0
0
According to the data in table 9.1
- a. According to the data in Table 9.1, The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) scores in more than a dozen countries are higher (indicating lower perceived levels of corruption) than in the United States.
- b. Only a small number of countries have a Corruption Perception Index score below 80, and most of these countries with small populations located in geographically remote parts of the world.
- c. The Corruption Perception Index score for the United States is higher than for Finland, Spain, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
- d. The corruption perception index (CPI) scores in countries as Finland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Switzerland is higher (indicating lower perceived levels of corruption) than in such countries as China, India, Russia, and Brazil.
4
1 Read the following Case analytically and answer the following questions :
1 Read the following Case analytically and answer the following questions :
Gorkha Nepal was established in 2000, as a family owned cottage industry with a brand name ofGorkha Foods. It has started with single product, baked bread (Pauroti).It had been expanded in 2004with diversified products, cookies, and puff pastry. It was first a small bake house run by own familymembers who got their start by supplying baked goods to their neighborhood market.
The brand name of Gorkha Foods has been producing bakery, biscuits, tea and coffee whitener andrice. Its vision is to become familiar brand of daily life to all consumers by providing best productswith reasonable price at all. It is committed for continuous improvement, research, and developmentfor better performance, sustainability and for the benefit to all stakeholders.
It has modem automatic production units and qualified professional staffs to provide the bestproducts. The primary competitive advantages are the customers centric approach, most competitiveprices, hygienically processed products, effective packaging solution, strict quality control process,upgraded manufacturing facility, and expert team of professionals.
The company is empowered with the advance processing, quality testing, packaging, warehousing,and allied facilities to meet the requirements of customers in the most suitable way. Quality productsand an international standard packaging is their strength. It undertakes stringent quality measuresthroughout the production process so as to ascertain facilities perfect finished products. Thecompany use only finest grade ingredients to produce its products. The quality controller keeps aclose vigil on all the activities starting from procurement of raw material up to the final dispatch ofconsignments. To maintain the taste and quality forever, the company is using latest technologies,trained staffs, and applying Japanese production system 5S and Kaizen in the production unit.
Today, Gorkha Nepal serves customers all over in Nepal. The company is yet constantly expandingits distribution andproducts offering to better serve the needs and opportunities that our competitivemarket place offers and demands. Their valuable consumer always guides the company. During itsshortperiod of operation. It has succeeded to spread their products in national and internationalmarket as well.
Questions:
a. Analyze the case from the perspective of operations system.
b. How has the competitive environment for Gorkha Nepal been changing over the past decades?Describe.
c. Suggest some strategies for improving business productivity and efficiency of the company?
0
Production and Operations Management