Logistics companies such as FedEx and UPS no longer merely carry goods from one place to another. Some of them also provide supply chain planning and management services to their customers and help them manage their supply chain information. Investigate the web site of FedEx OR UPS to see how these companies’ services may be used for supply chain management. Then, answer the following questions:
a) What supply chain processes can each of these companies support for their clients ?
In fedex's website, we have noted that under e-business column.
eSupply Chain Tools is provided by them including Inventory visibility, Manufacturing visibility, Warehouse management and Return management.
Inventory visibiltiy
Using the Internet to access and maintain inventory and warehouse management information. Keeping track of the shipping record and the detials of the goods.
Manufacturing visibility
An innovative slution to manage one's inbound supply chain. Keeping track of inbound shipment of componenets and raw matrials via the Internet. The system capable of data management, forecasting of lead times, and the compariosn of forecast versus ordered products.
Warehouse Management
This system mainly provide invertory and warehouse management. Acting as administrative role and making report for the inventory. Data can be excahgned within the system.
Return management
An Internet-based post sales system for handling returns, repairs and replacements with a superior level of after- sale service.
b) How can customers use the Web sites of each company to help them with supply chain management ?
Supply Chain Management means the process of planning, implementing and controllling the operations of the supply chain with the purpose to satisfy customer requirements as efficiently as possible.
Fedex provides Supply chain execution system for their customers such as Warehouse management, Order processing and distribution.
We can take a order by simply following the steps stated in the website.
And we can distribute the prodcuts by them to diffent areas.
They act as distributor in the SCM system.
The answer provided in Section a) is more suitable to Section b) if these import-export preparation and shipping steps can be performed thru the web site.
回覆刪除For Section a), a more suitable answer would be high-level business processes. For example, you mentioned e-business under Section b), but this could be a supply chain process that can be mentioned in Section a). You can describe what e-business services may be outsourced to the logistics companies.
Hope this helps !
These are good answers !
回覆刪除Customers can use the functions within the FedEx web site as their Supply Chain Execution system. Instead of installing these applications on their own computers, they can use the Web-based versions running on FedEx's servers.