Posted: November 5th, 2023

Logistics Management ASSIGNMENT -3

Logistics Management
ASSIGNMENT -3

Submission Date by students: Before the end of Week- 13th
Place of Submission: Students Grade Centre
Weight: 10 Marks
Learning Outcome:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of how global competitive environments are changing supply chain management and logistics practice.
2. Apply essential elements of core logistic and supply chain management principles.
3. Analyze and identify challenges and issues pertaining to logistical processes.
Assignment Workload:
This assignment is an individual assignment.

Critical Thinking
To meet all the challenges organizations, try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes their efforts to reducing manufacturing costs and improving the quality of the product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supply techniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firms leads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).
Increased global competition leads the industry to increase efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keen indecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasingly global economy, cost-effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.
The global marketplace has witnessed increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as the service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace, only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at a cheaper rate to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost-cutting, increasing productivity levels, and quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).
Consult textbook chapter 7 or secondary data on the internet and answer the following questions.
Question:
1. What do think about lean Thinking? Why have Manufacturing Companies adopted Lean Thinking? (2 Marks)
2. Briefly describe major types of Waste, that companies must keep in mind during production. (2 Marks)
3. What are the benefits from Suppliers to end users for using lean thinking? Assess the reasons (suitable examples), (2 Marks)
4. With the advent of artificial intelligence. The agile supply chain is a perfect concept for future SCM? Give reasons with suitable examples. (2 Marks)
5. Why overproduction is considered to be the biggest waste for manufacturing companies? (1Mark)
6. Reference (1 Mark)
Each answer should be within the limit of 200- 250 words.
The Answer must follow the outline points below:
• Lean Thinking and JIT Concept
• Agile Supply chain
• Their Main functions
• Reasons with suitable Examples
• Reference

Lean thinking focuses on eliminating waste from production processes. The core idea is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Manufacturing companies have widely adopted lean thinking because it allows them to reduce costs and improve efficiency. By removing non-value adding activities (muda), companies can produce more with fewer resources. This boosts profitability.
There are seven major types of waste that lean thinking aims to eliminate: (1) overproduction, (2) waiting time, (3) transportation, (4) inappropriate processing, (5) unnecessary inventory, (6) unnecessary motion, and (7) defects (Ohno, 1988). Overproduction refers to producing items before they are actually needed and is considered the biggest waste.
Lean thinking benefits suppliers, manufacturers, and end users. For suppliers, it results in steady and leveled demand. For manufacturers, it enhances productivity, quality, and delivery. For end users, it ensures just-in-time delivery of quality products at lower costs (Shah & Ward, 2007). An example is Toyota’s lean production system which connects all entities in its supply chain seamlessly through JIT kanban cards, resulting in lower inventory levels and higher customer satisfaction.
The agile supply chain concept is highly suitable for future supply chain management with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). AI technologies like machine learning and predictive analytics allow real-time demand sensing and automatic replenishment of goods. This enhances supply chain agility and responsiveness. For example, Anthropic uses AI to optimize inventory levels and fulfillment for clients like AutoZone based on real-time demand patterns (Anthropic, 2022).
Overproduction is considered the biggest waste because it ties up valuable resources like money, space, and manpower in unnecessary inventory carrying costs. It also obscures problems on the production line as defective items get mixed with good production. This makes problem-solving difficult (Ohno, 1988).
References:
Ohno, T. (1988). Toyota production system: Beyond large-scale production. CRC Press.
Shah, R., & Ward, P. T. (2007). Defining and developing measures of lean production. Journal of Operations management, 25(4), 785-805.
Anthropic. (2022). AI Supply Chain Optimization. https://www.anthropic.com/applications
Please let me know if you need any clarification or have additional questions. I’m happy to discuss further.