dq 1
Logistics in Your Organization
Resources
Read the Discussion Participation Scoring Guide to learn how the instructor will evaluate your discussion participation throughout this course.
How would you describe logistics in your organization? Describe the nature of the process and how it is used to deliver a service or product to your customer. Using the principles and techniques of logistics management, consider how your organization’s logistics process creates value. How do logistics processes in your industry compare to those of organizations in other industries (such as service or manufacturing)?
Note: Throughout the course, you will be asked to consider and discuss real-world examples from your own experiences in your organization. Unless otherwise specified, you can use your current organization, a previous employer, or any other with which you are familiar—provided you can obtain sufficient information about that organization to submit a complete response. If you have any concern about sharing confidential corporate information, please disguise the organization’s name and data.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- What is unique about your organization’s logistics operations, when compared to your peer’s? Briefly list the pros and cons of each system. Specify the similarities or differences that can be identified as competitive advantages.
- What additional information might you need in order to better understand the processes your peer describes, and their function within the organization?
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 2
Trends and Security Issues with Logistics
Resources
How have supply chain management (SCM) and logistics developments in the business environment (such as the advent of the Internet, centralized distribution, point of sale, and JIT) changed the delivery of services and products over the past 15 years?
- Consider how your logistics processes have changed in order to create value for your organization and its shareholders. Identify specific examples.
- Focus on one specific development in processes and techniques that has influenced positive changes in your business environment. (If you cannot identify a positive change, discuss one that you consider to have positive potential.)
- How have trends and security issues in the business environment added to the complexity of logistics in your organization?
- Compare changes in your organization to those of others in the industry.
- Cite an example of an organization that has not kept abreast of changes. Describe how you think that organization failed, missed, or neglected the process of its evolution.
- Cite an example of a leading organization that has embraced change. Briefly describe that organization’s best practices in regard to that change.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Compare how the logistics process of your peer’s organization has changed with how your organization’s process has changed. Identify specific examples.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
Third Party Logistics
Resources
Briefly describe the basic types of third party logistics (3PL) organizations.
- Identify some of the best practices that leading companies using 3PLs have embraced.
- What value-added considerations would you take into account when considering the use of a 3PL?
- Which 3PL would provide the most suitable service to your organization?
- What 3PLs does your organization currently use? (If your organization does not use the services of a 3PL, consider the operations where a 3PL could be used.) What other 3PLs could you recommend to your management?
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Evaluate whether the 3PLs used at your peer’s organization would be suitable in yours.
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of 3PLs in his or her organization? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 2
Trends and Security Issues with Logistics
Resources
How can information logistics technology be used to facilitate real-time decision-making in your organization’s logistics network?
- Describe how IT logistics technology is currently used in your organization, and how its use can it be improved or expanded.
- In what ways has the logistics technology added value to your organization? Quantify this value in terms of tangible and intangible results.
- Identify some of the best practices that leading companies using logistics technology have embraced.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of the potential for logistics technology in his or her organization? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
Forecasting and the Economic Environment
Resources
Identify changes in forecasting methodologies and approaches (for practices such as contracting, advanced payments, outsourcing to fix a price, continuous and fixed budgeting, simulations, or regression analysis) that have been influenced by current economic conditions.
Has the current economic environment changed your organization’s forecasting approaches to logistics within the supply chain?
- If so: Describe at least one new approach that is a specific result of the changes in the current economic environment. How is this change unique to these times? Will these changes help to maintain your organization’s competitive edge?
- If not: Would you recommend the implementation of new forecasting approaches? In what ways might a continuation of past techniques and approaches be dysfunctional? Briefly describe one specific new approach you would recommend.
Identify some of the best practices that leading companies are using in the area of logistics forecasting.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of the value of new or potential forecasting approaches in his or her organization? Explain.
- How would you recommend your peer’s organization change its approach?
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 2
Levels of Customer Service
Resources
Has the philosophy that there are different levels of customers had any material effect on the value of your organization’s customer service?
- Identify and explain the different levels of customer service in your organization.
- How are these differing levels associated with the cost-benefit financial approach?
- Is there a financial rationale for designating these differing levels? Can this be quantified?
- Has any aspect of the different levels approach been negative to the customer, or to the organization?
Describe some of the best practices that leading companies using unique approaches to customer service have embraced.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree or disagree with your peer’s assessment of the use and value of the different levels of customer service? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 1
Declines in Inventory Costs and Levels
Resources
According to your reading for this unit in Chapter 9 of the Coyle text, inventory costs and levels have declined in relation to the gross domestic product (GDP), in recent years.
Carrying high levels of inventory can be costly and risky. While products sit on shelves, opportunities and financing might be missed. Pilferage is a potential risk. Over time, the product could become obsolete.
Today, organizations are developing techniques to reduce the levels of inventory they must maintain, and their associated costs. For example, one evolving trend is to maintain showroom inventory. Approaches such as in-transit replenishment stock and point-of-sale reordering also reduce stagnant inventory costs.
How have new approaches influenced inventory information delivery in your organization?
- Investigate and identify any significant declines in inventory costs and levels for your organization over the span of the past 20 years.
- How have costs of carrying high levels of inventory (such as financing, opportunity, obsolescence, and pilferage) in your organization changed?
- Suggest at least one reason for any apparent decreases in costs or levels of inventory.
- What benefits can you attribute to these declines?
Discuss some of the best practices that leading companies, using unique approaches to logistics and inventory management, have embraced.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Compare how inventory processes in your peer’s organization have changed with how your organization’s inventory processes has changed. Identify specific examples.
- Do you agree or disagree with your peer’s assessment of the changes in his or her organization due to new inventory approaches?
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
Reference
Coyle, J. J., Langley, C. J., Jr., Novack, R. A., & Gibson, B. J. (2013). Supply chain management: A logistics perspective (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
dq 2
Costs of Transportation
Resources
Historically, in the United States, the use of trucking has vastly outweighed the use of other modes of transportation. With fuel prices on the rise today, and given current economic conditions, it is likely that there will be both short- and long-term changes ahead.
- What potential changes do you see in the preferred modes of transportation for your industry sector? Specify any evolving trends you can see.
- Identify the mode of transportation most used by your organization. Can you discern any potential areas for improvement? For example, might rail be more cost-effective than trucking (assuming that customer demand can be satisfied)?
- Identify any challenges that less-versatile, less-capable companies may face, if they cannot be flexible in embracing new modes of transportation.
- Describe some of the best practices, in the area of transportation mode utilization, that leading companies in your industry have embraced.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- How is your peer’s industry affected differently from yours by transportation costs? How are the effects similar?
- Do you agree or disagree with your peer’s assessment of the transportation changes ahead in his or her organization? Try to extend the conversation.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 1
Logistics-supply Chain Network Design
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Describe how a properly designed logistics-supply chain network could benefit an organization. How can improved design create value in customer service, lower costs, and promote timely delivery? Redesigning the supply chain network can provide a key competitive advantage.
Identify a least one way your organization could benefit from a supply chain network redesign. Discuss at least one example of an area of opportunity for improvement. Describe how a redesign might favor your organization’s competitive advantage, from a strategic position.
Identify some of the best practices that leading companies using supply chain network redesign have embraced.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of the redesign potential in his or her organization? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 2
Supplier Qualifications and Certifications
Resources
In order to ensure the value and quality of their products or services, many organizations are promoting the use of formal qualifications and certifications for their suppliers. New evaluation approaches, such as those developed by TQM, Six Sigma, and ISO, offer improved value and quality assurance.
- Identify the current qualification and certification process in your organization. What are the criteria used to qualify a supplier? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the existing process? Are there specific changes that you could recommend?
- Select one approach (TQM, Six Sigma, or ISO) and describe how it could benefit your organization and add value to your customer’s experience.
- Identify best practices that leading companies in your industry have embraced in the area of supplier qualifications and certifications.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of the use of supplier qualifications and certifications in his or her organization? Explain.
- Consider the approach chosen by your peer to benefit his or her organization. In your opinion, would a different approach for your peer’s organization be better? Why or why not?
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
Reverse Logistics
Resources
Consider ways in which reverse logistics has impacted your life, as a consumer. How has reverse logistics affected you as a member of your organization or industry? Briefly describe potential areas for improvement within your organization or industry.
Identify a process within your organization that frequently lends itself to reverse logistics. Do the costs of continuing this process exceed the benefits?
Describe some of the opportunities and challenges you see in this topic, from the logistical standpoints of both manufacturers and retailers.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment reverse logistics in his or her organization? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
dq 2
Trends and Transformations
Resources
How can your organization use effective logistics in supply chain management to maintain a competitive edge and enhance its financial posture in the future? What might your organization do differently to increase its market share?
Identify one key factor you would advise your management to focus on in the organization’s growth strategy. Consider, for example, how customer service could be improved.
Many growth strategies divide plans into short-term and long-term segments.
- What specific tactics would you employ for your key factor during the short term? Explain.
- What specific tactics would you employ for your key factor during the long term? Explain.
Briefly describe best practices that you see leading companies in your industry implementing now. Would these best practices also benefit your organization?
Response Guidelines
Respond to the posts of at least two of your peers. For each response, include the following:
- Do you agree with your peer’s assessment of the best plans for the future of his or her organization? Explain.
- What additional comments, suggestions, or experiences can you share with your peer?
