Management
Supply-chain management at Toyota is an element of company’s operations strategy which is thoroughly based on the Toyota Production System (TPS). It was developed in the 1940’s by Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno. As Toyota’s success gained world-wide coverage, at was followed by interest by other companies in TPS, the principles of which is expressed by the term of “lean manufacturing” Liker (2005, p.16) lists following components of Toyota Supplier Partnering Hierarchy: mutual understanding and trust, interlocking structures, control systems, compatible capabilities, information sharing, joint improvement activities, and Kaizen and learning. “JIT system – a system that organizes the resources information flows and decision rules that enable a firm to realise the benefits of JIT principles”. (Krajewski, Ritzman & Malhotra p.349) The elements of just-in-time system are being pro-active in exposing problems, pull production based in Kanban, Total Quality Management, elimination of waste, reducing inventory through involving suppliers in planning process, continuous improvement, improving machinery and focusing on co-operation. According to Kanban each part travels with a card. New stock will only be required when that part has been used, the card is removed, using signals to re-stock this part. Kanban is well integrated in Toyota’s production system, because in Toyota there are limited number of parts with stable demand for them. Also, product mix is low and exchanges are infrequent. Capacity planning in any company is part of a supply-chain management for that specific company. Toyota’s way to capacity planning is that it strives to eliminate inventory. In achieving this objective Toyota relies heavily in pull system. Generally, the main objective is continuous improvement. Another operational excellence pioneered in Toyota and later adopted by other companies worldwide is a “Lean Concept”. Lean philosophy aims to achieve are the elimination of all waste, superior customer care, and Lean is based…
Defining logistics and quality within supply chain management Supply chain management. According to Wilton (2005, p.22 ), the term logistics has originated around 1930’s from the French word “logistique”, which is taken from the word “loger” meaning dividing troops. Nowadays, the term logistics is used in different spheres, bearing different meanings. The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) define logistics as “the plans, implements and controls that effectively and efficiently forward and reverse the flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer’s requirements”(CSCMP – online, 2010). Alternative definition of logistics is provided by Webster’s dictionary as “the procurement, maintenance, distribution, and replacement of personnel and material”(Webster’s Dictionary – online, 2010) Mentzer et al. define supply chain as a “set of three or more entities (organizations or individuals) directly involved in the upstream and downstream flows of products, services, finances, and/or information from a source to a customer” (2001, p.4) The quality within supply chain management is defined by the author of present essay as the measure of supply chain in terms of reducing costs of supply chain and increasing its efficiency. Houlinah (1998, p.14) lists the following differences between supply chain management and traditional manufacturing materials control. Firstly, supply chain is seen as a single process. Second, supply chain requires strategic approach and decisions making. Third, supply chain requires a different approach to inventory. And, fourth supply chain requires integration rather than interfacing for system approach. The objective of managing supply-chain, according to Stevens (1989, p.5), is to synchronise the requirements of the customer with the flow of materials from suppliers with the aim of effecting the balance to achieve high customer service, low inventory management and low unit cost. Companies in any…
I. Introduction Activities undertaken by companies can be divided into two groups: its daily usual business operations and projects that are devised and implemented in order to achieve a specific objective, usually measures and activities that will assist in profit maximisation in short or/and long-term perspective. Nowadays project management is used by companies not only to achieve a specific objective like building a new facilities or introducing a new software, project management as also being used as an efficient tool to achieve strategic objectives of a company. This first part of the report analyses the reasons as why organizations are using project management in order to achieve their strategic objectives. It starts with the introduction of the problem and a brief analysis of the evolution of project management in order to study the background of the issue. Then the importance of project management in achieving strategic objectives is discussed together with the challenges likely to occur in linking project management and organizational objectives. II. The Evolution of Project Management The analysis of the evolution of project management gives us necessary knowledge and perspective required to assess the role of project management in achieving strategic objectives in a due manner. Project management started as a tactical method mainly used to facilitate the completion of individual projects and initiatives such as introducing new software, initiating a new program or creating a new system. The beginning and popularization of project management is widely linked to the major work of Drucker “The Practice of Management” (1954). According to Panico (2002), from the 1940’s through the 1980’s PM was mainly thought to be a practice used by people working in engineering, construction and military. The Development of modern project management can be divided into following four periods (Azzopardi, 2010): 1. The period before 1958 when…
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