3.5. Information system and information requirements
Information systems are interconnected components that work together to gather, process, keep, and disseminate information to support decision making, harmonization, control, evaluation, along with visualization in a company. It is typically made up of five components that encompass hardware, program, data, people as well as process. IS is used to run inter-organizational supply chain and electronic markets. Information requirements, on the other hand, are the information required to support a business or other activity. They are the functional specifications of an information system. Moreover, information requirements include a list of comprehensive transactions like orders and purchases, together with summarized data from master records like clients, vendors, and workers.
3.6 Supply chain performance measures
SCPM are the approaches used to judge the performance of the supply chain system. The measures are usually grouped into two broad categories, which include qualitative measure and quantitative measures. Qualitative measures are generally used to judge customer satisfaction alongside product quality. Likewise, quantitative measures are usually used in the supply chain to measure resource utilization, delivery performance, flexibility, and supply chain response time. Quantitative measures of supply chain performance can be further grouped into two classes, which involve non-financial measures and financial measures. The metrics of non-financial measures entail customer service level, cycle time, and resource utilization capacity to perform. Similarly, financial measures help in gauging distinct fixed and operational costs linked to supply chain management.
- Recommended changes to current logistics and supply chain arrangements
Some alternations should be made on the current logistic and supply chain arraignments in terms of the location of operations. The locations of operations should be diversified to avoid producing products from a single production point. Diversification of the locations of operations would enable the company to produce its products from various locations, and this would, in turn, alleviate the company from huge expenses incurred in distributing products from one location to another through outbound logistics.
Companies should also enhance their capacity of operations to enable them to perform mass production, which would, in turn, enable them to limit the time taken in the production of goods. Mass production would also enable them to meet the market demand of the products within the shortest period, and this would consequently help the companies to maximize the profits from the sale of their products.
Similarly, changes should be made in the transportation arrangements to promote faster delivery of the products to the target markets. Also, alterations should be made in the supply chain arrangement to ensure that the supply chain managers have the requisite skills that would enhance supply chain activities to foster the performance and productivity of the company in the competitive business environment. Likewise, both qualitative and quantitative supply chain performance measures should be implemented to measure the supply chain performance of organizations.
A brief conclusion
The Swiss watch industry is the prominent manufacturers of luxurious watches in the globe. Zentrum Precision AG is likely to challenges, which ranges from threats of new entrants to threats of rivals. Based on porter’s five analysis of the Swiss watch industry, Zentrum would face various challenges which would adversely affect its performance, profitability alongside viability in the aggressive swiss switch industry. Moreover, the available measures for gauging the present supply chain management involve qualitative measures and quantitative measures. Likewise, it would be recommended that some alterations would be made in the present supply and chain management in terms of locations of operations along with the capacity of operations.