Reducing the delivery lead time in a food distribution SME through the implementation of six sigma methodology

Purpose – Six sigma is a systematic data driven approach to reduce the defect and improve the quality in any type of business. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from the application of six sigma in a food service “small to medium sized enterprise” (SME) in a lean environment to reduce the waste in this field. Design/methodology/approach – A simplified version of six sigma is adopted through the application of appropriate statistical tools in order to focus on customer's requirements to identify the defect, the cause of the defect and improve the delivery process by implementing the optimum solution. Findings – The result suggests that modification in layout utilization reduced the number of causes of defect by 40 percent resulting in jumping from 1.44 sigma level to 2.09 Sigma level which is substantial improvement in SME. Research limitations/implications – Simplicity of six sigma is important to enabling any SME to identify the problem and minimize its cause through a systematic approach. Practical implications – Integrating of supply chain objectives with any quality initiatives such as lean and six sigma has a substantial effect on achieving to the targets. Originality/value – This paper represents a potential area in which six sigma methodology along side the lean management can promote supply chain management objectives for a food distribution SME

A structured method for the optimization of the existing last mile logistic flows

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceIn a fast-moving world some business exists due to the interconnectivity between countries. This happens because transports are able to reach the other side of the globe within few days and without being too expensive compensating the lower costs of production and competitive advantages. This is true for well-organized and big supply chains but even them can benefit from integration with disconnected and more complex supply chain as it is the case of e-commerce chains. The transaction of small packages from online shopping required in a totally distinct country of the place of production have very specific characteristics as they are spot flows, hard to predict and to combine with other goods owing to the fact that the destination of flows are different every time and it is not always worth it to dedicate a transport for such a small goods value and in addition most times, logistics have to answer to some challenging marketing requirements meaning they have time windows to fulfil. Last mile is a big part of logistics transports and is one important part of it that can really help companies having better prices and revenues for their transports. Last mile solutions need to be easy to implement and really have to translate in quick gains to logistic companies that are largely reducing their margins to increase competitiveness. In this context, the study aims to investigate and define a method following design Research Methodology hopping to draw some innovative solutions for the problem of last mile. In this respect, the work developed intends to study the solutions already implemented and extract insights on how distribution is made and how to maximize last mile profit through the mature of an algorithm able to reduce inefficiencies in a simple way without having to wiggle too much the structure of businesses as resources of last mile service providers are understood to be scarce as many last mile companies are small sized and running under big logistic players. The solution aims to attain the different marketing requirements exactly as it was defined without having to compromise anything but still being able to make good profit margins and perhaps make room for new opportunities to arise that previously were not profitable

The bridge of dreams::Towards a method for operational performance alignment in IT-enabled service supply chains

Concerns on performance alignment, especially on business-IT alignment, have been around for three decades. It is still considered to be one of the most important driving forces for business success, as well as one of the top concerns of many practitioners and organizational researchers. It is also found to be a major issue in two thirds of digital transformation projects. Many attempts from researchers in diverse disciplines have been made to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, they have been working separately and the research appears in various forms and names. This dissertation presents a piece of interdisciplinary research that focuses on identifying operational performance alignment issues, discovering and assessing their root causes with attention to the dynamics in operating IT-enabled service supply chain (SSC). It makes a modest contribution by providing a communication-centred instrument which can modularize complex SSC in terms of a hierarchically-structured set of services and analyze the performance causality between them. With a special focus on the impact of IT, it makes it possible to monitor and tune various performance issues in SSC. This research intends to provide a solution-oriented common ground where multiple service research streams can meet together. Following the framework proposed in this research, services, at different tiers of an SSC, are modelled with a balanced perspective on both business, technical service components and KPIs. It allows a holistic picture of service performances and interactions throughout the entire supply chain to be viewed through a different research lens and permits the causal impact of technology, business strategy, and service operations on supply chain performance to be unveiled

Four cases on market orientation of value chains in agribusiness and fisheries

This working paper presents results from the project ‘Supra-company level determinants of degree of market orientation of value chains in agriculture and fisheries’, which is carried out in cooperation between MAPP – Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark, the Norwegian College of Fisheries Science, University of Tromsø, Norway, and the Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Scotland. It has benefited from grants from the Danish Social Science Research Council and from the Norwegian Research Council. The present working paper is the ‘long’ version of the empirical work in the first major phase of the project, where we study four examples of food value chains to get insight into their degree of market orientation and possible determinants. The insights gained here have been used in subsequent empirical work that is currently underwayMarket orientation;

Business process management tools as a measure of customer-centric maturity

In application of business process management (BPM) tools in European commercial sectors, this paper examines current maturity of customer centricity construct (CC) as an emerging dimension of competition and as a potential strategic management direction for the future of business. Processes are one of the key components of transformation in the CC roadmap. Particular departments are more customer orientated than others, and processes, customer-centric expertise, and approach can be built and utilized starting from them. Positive items within a current business process that only involve minor modification could be the basis for that. The evidence of movement on the customer-centric roadmap is found. BPM in European telecommunications, banking, utility and retail sector supports roadmap towards customer-centricity in process view, process alignment and process optimization. However, the movement is partial and not flawless, as BPM hasn’t been inquired for supporting many of customer-centric dimensions

Metodologi Manajemen Biaya Untuk Industrial Product-Service Systems

Persaingan global telah mendorong perusahaan manufaktur untuk merubah pola pikir mereka dari hanya menjual produk menjadi penyedia produk dan jasa yang terintegrasi. Strategi baru ini dikenal sebagai Product-Service System (PSS). Industrial Product-Service System (IPS2) merupakan kasus khusus dari PSS di mana konsumen utama dari perusahaan tersebut adalah perusahaan lain (business-to-business). Konsep IPS2 menjanjikan banyak keuntungan tetapi juga akan membawa tantangan khususnya yang berkaitan dengan perhitungan biaya. Biaya merupakan aspek yang sangat penting bagi perusahaan untuk merencanakan dan menjalankan bisnis. Tapi penelitian terdahulu menunjukkan bahwa sangat sedikit referensi yang tersedia yang membahas mengenai perhitungan biaya untuk perusahaan IPS2. Tesis ini ingin menentukan teknik perhitungan biaya apa yang paling sesuai untuk perusahaan IPS2 khususnya model bisnis function-oriented. Penelitian ini menggunakan kombinasi metodologi literature review dan analisis studi kasus. Pada tahap literature review, situasi terkini dari perusahaan IPS2 dan sistem biaya yang paling umum seperti Activity-Based Costing (ABC), Time- Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC), Process-Based Costing (PBC) dan Lean Accounting dipelajari untuk menentukan sistem biaya mana yang paling sesuai untuk dimodifikasi untuk memenuhi kebutuhan perusahaan IPS2. Kerangka perhitungan biaya baru berdasarkan prisip lean akan diusulkan dan diverifikasi pada tahap studi kasus. Secara umum perusahaan IPS2 function-oriented masih mengunakan perhitungan biaya tradisional (standard costing). Padahal, sistem ini tidak lagi mampu menjawab kebutuhan perusahaan dan mendorong untuk melakukan perbaikan berkelanjutan dan transformasi menuju perjalanan servitization. Kerangka biaya yang diusulkan terdiri dari elemen biaya apa saja yang mungkin muncul di perusahaan IPS2 function-oriented dan tahap untuk menghitung biaya total dari penawaran terintegrasi. =================================================================================================== Increasing competition has encouraged manufacturing company to shift their mind-set from only selling product becoming an integrated products and services provider. This new strategy is called as Product-Service System (PSS). Industrial Product-Service System (IPS2) is specific case in PSS when the major customers are another industrial companies. IPS2 is promising some benefits but it will also bring challenges particularly in terms of cost assessment dimension. Cost is certainly one of important considerations for companies to plan and direct their businesses. But studies show that there is remain very limited researches for cost assessment in IPS2 companies. This research intends to analyze the present cost estimation in IPS2 company particularly function-oriented business model. The research is conducted by using the combination of intensive literature review and case study analysis. During the literature review stage, the current situation of IPS2 companies and the most common used costing system such as Activity-Based Costing (ABC), Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC), Process-Based Costing (PBC) and Lean Accounting are studied to find the most suitable costing system to be adjusted to meet the needs of IPS2. A new cost assessment framework based on lean principle then being proposed and verified during the stage of case study analysis. Currently most of IPS2 function-oriented companies remain use the traditional costing (standard costing) whereas this costing system is not appropriate for IPS2 companies and particularly could not support company’s continuous improvement and transformation toward the long servitization journey. The new proposed cost assessment framework is developed to address all the IPS2 functionoriented characteristics. The framework consists of the cost structures occurred in IPS2 function-oriented company and the sequence steps to obtain the cost of total offering