WESTMINSTER CASE STUDY
CURRENT STATE
Westminster Company, US based profound consumer health care manufacturer, has maintained a proud traditional name since 1923. It consists of offices throughout Europe, Latin America and Pacific Rim. The company maintains three individual fully owned companies comprising of nine manufacturing plants and eight distribution centres, implementing decentralized management levels to improve self-responsibility and competitiveness.
The sales composition is split into 37% from grocery stores, 20% from drug stores, 35% from mass merchants and 8% from miscellaneous sources. 70% of their total sales value is derived from 10% of their important customers. The company has foreseen valuable increase in their demand and is about to face some problems due to their traditional distribution network and their competitors. To focus these issues, they have decided to improvise on certain issues by collaboration with suppliers and customers which are discussed below.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Alex Coldfield, the VP of SCM, Westminster with team of high level managers has decided to improvise their supply chain capabilities to face these issues in a prominent way. They are analysing their customer composition and customer service requirements and align it more towards cost reduction. Alex also plans to implement three strategies to align the network redesign.
Alex has analysed to change the traditional inventory replenishment into daily or weekly point-of-sales
The products/services offered are a large supermarket, a wide range of food and non-food e.g. cd/video, books, pharmaceuticals, a cook shop, food includes:- bakery, meat, fish produce, dairy, frozen foods, tinned/packets, also a customer restaurant and a petrol station.
Westminster Company is a giant Global manufacturer of health products whose brand has been recognized by the world. As the company they have three different operations which produce and distribute different product lines. Their main strategy on which they are working and which is a major success for them is decentralized management. Now they are re-evaluating their traditional supply chain strategy because the company is getting too much pressure from their large domestic’s customers and global customers. Now the company has to study on
3. How can supply chain design and integration help John Wolf reduce investment and space requirements while maintaining adequate service levels?
Westminster Company has a long, rich tradition of being one of the biggest healthcare supply businesses in the world. They developed from a simple pharmacy supplier into an expanded, diverse variety of healthcare products to satisfy customer requirements. Westminster has operated in the United States (US) as three separate entities under one company that differ in location, size, and products produced. These three entities are individually operated and have no centralized management. In recent years, Westminster has observed the changing market and competition related to supply chains. In response, Westminster has conducted surveys and research over the past couple months that found some of the major issues that need to be addressed, to better serve their customers. As a result, they have sought solutions to adapt to these necessities in order to remain a solvent, competitive organization. The customers that make up the largest portion of sales (80/20 rule) are the mass merchants. These mass merchants are expected to continue growing during the upcoming decades. Therefore, it is imperative for Westminster Co. to ensure that they are able to properly serve the mass merchants’ requirements, while still being able to maintain customer requirements of non-mass merchants. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Westminster’s current traditional supply chain practices and integrate solutions that will target efficient use of company resources while building stronger
Mendez vs. Westminster. About 80 years ago, one of the first court-ordered desegregations in California. This case was not your normal black vs white segregation that you hear about all of the time. This court case was about white's vs Mexican Americans. This began in 1931 when a court ordered a school district to stop segregating whites and Mexicans. In 1946, during the Mendez case, the federal court reached the same result. Because this was the first federal court case to desegregate whites and Mexicans, it is an important case to look at. Gonzalo Mendez was only seven years old when he became a defendant in this case. When the Mendez family moved to California their aunt took the kids and their cousins to enroll in school. When they got
Success for many organizations depends on the firm’s ability to balance product and process changes while exceeding customer expectations for improved cost delivery and quality. In lieu of these issues firms have started to implement principles of supply chain management. Supply chain management mainly involves managing the flow of incoming materials, manufacturing operations, and downstream distribution has to be in alignment that is responsive to change in customer demands eliminating a surplus of inventory.
An ideal SCM integrates all aspects of logistics in a rapid manner attempting to achieve the objectives by using who, what, when, where, and why (the 5Ws) for accuracy and success. The focus of this literature will cover the history, functions, modifications and future of SCM, while also considering the literature and preceding research that was conducted in each area. This paper will enhance the readers’ understanding of the SCM in general along with the process and concepts of the subject. It will also enable readers to apply aspects of SCM in their respective line of business. The literature for this review is relative, ranging from one to three years old. Organizations must understand that Supply Chain Management can increase the company’s EBITA (Earnings Before Interest Taxes Amortization) or decrease it if used properly. An additional benefit of an optimal SCM is optimizing time from production to customer, which can increase customer base when the industry notice speed of delivery to customers.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been defined by Supply Chain Management Institute to be “the management of relationships in the network of organizations, from end customers through original suppliers, using key cross-functional business processes to create value for customers and other stakeholders”(SCM-Institute, 2016).
Supply change management (SCM) is active in many organizations today. The purpose of SCM is to maximize the company value in order maintain a competitive advantage in the market place. As an Operational Managers (OM) it is essential to oversee the supply chain within an organization. The OM responsibility is to manage the supply chain flow, and to ensure the supply chain has a quality design in order to reduce cost and drive efficiency. (Reid & Sanders, 2010) An organization supply chain includes activities such as product development, sourcing, productions, logistics, material, and other information systems needed to coordinate the movement of goods from suppliers to manufactures, and to final customers.
3: How can supply chain strategy help John Wolf reduce investment and space requirements while maintaining adequate service levels?
Supply chain management (SCM) is the supervision of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to retailer to the cessation consumer. There are three crucial flows of the supply chain: The product flow, the information flow and the finances flow. SCM involves coordinating and integrating these flows both inside and between
Improvements in transportation process and technology enablement make available the most achievable way for most companies today to flush out supply chain costs and advance quality, reliability and customer satisfaction. Companies across nearly every industry sector are motivated to become supply chain management leaders. SCM leaders attain this rank in their markets by extensively dropping cycle times and operating expenses, increasing supply chain
In future maintain 5% of stores as mini-supermarkets in her development target. 759 STORE did its best to conduct “lower margin with high turnover” policy. Through this 3 years effort on active developing direct import model, it was grateful that 759 STORE had not only built up supplies with food distributors and manufacturers of Japan and other countries, but also a smooth import operation with substantial procurement scale. To avoid any conflict on product price setting with traditional market players, the Group would take further step to increase the proportion of direct import and much fully exclude the supply of local suppliers who were difficult to have price negotiation with and did not allow 759 STORE to set product prices independently. Exploring new products in all angles and without limitation, our procurement team continued to source wide varieties of import product for Hong Kong residents’ enjoyment, where around 80% of them was food products and 20% of them was household and other products, hoping that our
Define the situation (case summary) Define the major issues, conflicts, and the network . Describe the options (alternatives) for solving these issues. Several internal and external influences serve as contributing factors in the reconsideration of the company’s current system. Changes in customer demands, domestic and global competition, and a unique decentralized management system is now forcing the Westminster Company to reevaluate their traditional supply chain practices. (Bowersox & M.B., 2014) Westminster’s domestic operations consist of three separate companies that sell and distribute products to several of the same customers. (Bowersox & M.B., 2014) At first glance consolidation of the systems can significantly improve
In 1993, the company decided to improve its distribution system, by creating a more exclusive and updated solution, aiming to gain a competitive advantage in the market. In order to achieve this, Adidas hired an IT company to create a new software. Unfortunately, the new software was not compatible with the one that the company’s vendors were using. At the same time, the IT Company ceased its operation.