Complex Supply Chain Networks and Supply Chain Drivers:
Abstract
The analyst in the Distribution, Engineering, Maintenance, and Productions Management Group of the Central Engineering Department for Canbide Corporation is in charge of analyzing various operations at all of Canbide’s facilities. The purpose of our group is to analyze operations, report our findings, and make recommendations for continued improvements and implementations of Operations Management (OM) tools.
The remainder of this report summarizes our findings and recommendations on three of our electronics facilities located in Oregon. It is a result of a collaborated effort by the entire group, research, analysis, observations, communications with management, and interviews with the production and inventory planning staffs at these facilities. In order to focus the report on the main findings rather than all the individual problems and associated recommendations, we’ve included a detailed outline as an appendix to this report.
Our initial visit to the facilities allowed us to gather general information such as locations and relation to each other, facilities and production layouts, and business/operations information. It was discovered that facilities T and P were located in the same building but run as separate businesses and that S facility was about seventy miles from them. They share common customers and are dependant on each other. The S facility produces parts and sub-assemblies for facilities T and P and the “accessory” parts for the S facility are purchased by and shipped from the P and T facilities.
This creates a complex intra-company and external supply chain consisting of all business processes and information used to provide our product to the custom ...