Procurement logistic and supply chain management Coursework

Procurement logistic and supply chain management - Coursework Example Cooper et al (1997) mentioned that practitioners and educators have variously addressed the concept of supply chain management as an extension of logistics, or as an all-encompassing approach to business integration. BCAM is headed by James Irvine, Managing Director holding 40% of the shares while Tom Irvine is the Production Director with 25% shares in the company. The company was established 100 years ago by the Irvine family which came into existence during mass industrialization of UK agricultural sector manufacturing tractors and wide range of associated agricultural equipments like harvesters, balers, mowers and sprayers. Over these years, BCAM was able to build good reputation in the market but lacked innovation and neglected both product and market development failing which the company was not able to react to the demand and had to face stiff competition, mainly from Europe, USA and Far East. As supply chain management and procurement logistics are important in efficient, smo oth and continuous functioning of the company, this paper critically analyses the supply chain management process of British Consolidated Agricultural Machinery (BCAM), its consequences on the operation and management of the company and evaluating different approaches of supply chain management to benefit the company in terms of improved procurement and supply chain management. ... Further Hugos (2006) states that supply chain management is the coordination of production, inventory, location and transportation among the participants in a supply chain to achieve the best mix of responsiveness and efficiency for the market being served† Various definitions from different authors concentrate mainly on flow of goods and materials within the company for timely production, cost effective operations and better customer service which is not evident or persistent in the supply chain process of BCAM. The supply chain process at BCAM did not meet any of the essential criterions as suggested by several authors in Mentzer (2001). BCAM lacked strategic planning in its supplied chain process as purchasing officer would make a reorder for the goods and materials only after the low stock level and stock issue made by the warehouse. Warehouse officials manually carried the inventory and issued reorder report to the purchase department after which purchase department would require three days to forward purchaser order to the supplier, which may extend to week further if the individual product lines are batched up into one large order with a single supplier. It may be noted that logistics play a major role in supply chain management process which is not limited to single organization but refers to a network that work together and coordinate their actions to deliver a product to the market (Hugos, 2006). Delivering product to customers requires implementation of the strategic process within the firm to integrate the firm with other members of the supply chain and other operational activities at day to day level (Lambart, 2008). Procurement of materials, which is the primary task of purchase department lacked decision making power as it