“Don’t ship air” and “don’t ship water” are the bases of some important supply chain strategies. What do these statements really mean? What are the related strategies? How do these strategies help?

MITIGATING SUPPLYCHAIN RISKS TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS With the increasing sophistication of supply chains, organizations are finding it difficult to attain a constant flow of supplies across all network and turning to some form of collaboration across different tiers. Sourcing has become the order of the day despite the logistical challenges involved. The outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia has accelerated widespread increases in global commodity prices making it difficult for purchasers to attain their goals. The wars represent a unique shock that has a major impact on production, distribution and availability of materials. In order to ensure continued supply and/or delivery supply chains need to effectively coordinate and consolidate supply bases across different actors to mitigate shortages.   Q.1. Basing on your own assessment of the current situation globally, would you recommend organizations and/or supply chains to undertake supplier…

MITIGATING SUPPLYCHAIN RISKS TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS With the increasing sophistication of supply chains, organizations are finding it difficult to attain a constant flow of supplies across all network and turning to some form of collaboration across different tiers. Sourcing has become the order of the day despite the logistical challenges involved. The outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia has accelerated widespread increases in global commodity prices making it difficult for purchasers to attain their goals. The wars represent a unique shock that has a major impact on production, distribution and availability of materials. In order to ensure continued supply and/or delivery supply chains need to effectively coordinate and consolidate supply bases across different actors to mitigate shortages.   Q.1 Evaluate the influence of global risks on the achievement of key purchasing objectives and/or outcomes in the entire supply chain.

“There are known unknowns, knowable unknowns and unknowable unknowns”(Donald Rumsfeld). How would supply chain managers deal with the prospect of risk and vulnerability within global supply chains?

(Adapted from Portillo, 2009) Recall the case study on designing a resilient global supply chain discussed in Section 8.6. The five main criteria considered are as follows: GP: Gross profit LT: Lead time DF: Demand fulfillment RD: Risk of disruption SF: Strategic factor (a) Using a rating method, the Director of supply chain, assigned a score from 1 to 10 (1 being the least important and 10 being the most important) for the five criteria as shown in Table 8.10. Determine the criteria weights using the rating method. (b) Suppose the Director of supply chain ranks the criteria from most important to least important as follows: (Most important) GP, DF, LT, SF, RD (Least important) Using Borda count, determine the criteria weights.  

Which factors are the most often cited "drivers" and "facilitators" of effective supply chain relationships?

In terms of supply chain risk, more reliance on supply chains means more risk and fewer suppliers increase dependence. Identify three (3) supply chain risks and briefly explain what mitigation tactics you would use to overcome them.

What is the bullwhip effect and how does it relate to lack off coordination in the supply chain?