business operation of Mercedes-Benz

Lo1:supply chain :A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. This network includes different activities, people, entities, information, and resources. The supply chain also represents the steps it takes to get the product or service from its original state to the customer（Will，2020）.

Supply chain management is a crucial process because an optimized supply chain results in lower costs and a faster production cycle（Will，2020）

Benefit of supply chain management

1. HIGHER EFFICIENCY RATE:

When your business is able to incorporate supply chains, integrated logistics, and product innovation strategies, you’ll be in a great position to not only predict demand as well as to act accordingly. And this is, without any doubt, one of the main supply chain management benefits. Why? When your business implements supply chain management systems, it will be able to adjust more dynamically to the fluctuating economies, emergency markets, and shorter product life-cycles.

2. DECREASE COST EFFECTS:

One of the advantages of supply chain management is the costs decrease in different areas. The most important ones are:

· Improves your inventory system;

· Adjusts the storage space for finished goods which eliminates damage resources;

· Improves your system’s responsiveness to the actual customer’s requirements;

· Improves your relationship with both distributors and vendors.

3. INCREASES OUTPUT:

One of the main benefits of supply chain management is the communication improvement. This adds up to the coordination and collaboration with shipping and transport companies, vendors, and suppliers.

4. INCREASES YOUR BUSINESS PROFIT LEVEL:

When you place your business open to the new technologies and an improved collaboration within the different areas, you can be sure that this will ultimately increase your business profit level.

5. BOOST COOPERATION LEVEL:

When we’re talking about the most successful businesses right now, one of the things they all have in common is the communication. In fact, when there is a lack of communication, your vendors and distributors have no idea about what’s going on. So, this is definitely one of the main advantages of supply chain management. Plus, when you also open your doors and embrace technology, you can also take advantage of the fact that people don’t even need to share the same space in order to be a true communication.

The communication among the different areas of your business will allow you to have faster access to forecasts, reporting, quotation, statuses, among many other plans in real time.

6. NO MORE DELAYS IN PROCESSES:

One of the main benefits of supply chain management is the fact that through communication, you can actually lower any delays in processes. Since everyone is aware of what they’re doing as well as what others are doing, this will mitigate any late shipments from vendors, logistical errors in distribution channels, and hold-ups on production lines.

7. ENHANCED SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORK:

It’s not easy to maintain a sustainable supply chain management system. According to some of its advocates, one of the best ways to do it is by using a combination of lean practices (like waste removal, for example) with agile. By combining all the information gathered on the different sectors of your business will allow you to have an enhanced supply chain network.（Tovah，2020）

LO2：Supply chain integration is a process where the all the parties involved with the fulfillment of a product are integrated into a single system. This requires significant coordination and alignment in order to ensure everyone is effectively working toward the same goal at all times.

Important The ability to be flexible and adapt to different situations is important in any competitive industry. Having an integrated supply chain allows companies to do that much more quickly and fluidly than would be possible with a traditional logistics model.

LO3:Customer Relationship Management

Creates a structure for developing and maintaining relationships with customers. Individual customers or groups are identified, based on their value over time, and their loyalty can be enhanced by providing tailored products and services. Cross-functional customer teams develop Product and Service Agreements (PSA) to meet the needs of key accounts and for segments of other customers. They also work with key customers to improve processes and eliminate demand variability and non-value added activities. Performance reports are designed to measure the profitability of individual customers as well as the financial impact on the customer.

The SYSPRO software solution enables companies to collect, maintain and manipulate a rich, customer-related database to promote increasing revenue and profitability. Our Sales and Distribution solutions and SYSPRO Reporting also support the CRM process.

Supplier Relationship Management

Defines how a company interacts with its suppliers. As in the case of customer relationship management, a company will form close relationships with some of its suppliers, while others are less closely cultivated. Good supplier relationship management involves devising the right PSAs and managing them well, so that the company and its suppliers continue to benefit from the most favourable trading arrangements.

Customer Service Management

Operates at the customer interface. It provides the key point of contact for administering the PSA and can give the customer information on orders, shipping dates and product availability. SYSPRO ERP manufacturing and logistics modules supply the data required by customer service management.

<Demand Management

Allows a company to be proactive in matching supply to demand. The process includes forecasting and synchronization of supply and demand, in order to increase flexibility and reduce demand variability. The process should employ customer intelligence, historical sales information and planned marketing efforts to forecast and influence demand.

The Order Fulfilment

Process involves more than just filling orders. It includes all activities necessary to define customer requirement and to design a process that allows a company to meet customer requests, while minimising the total delivered cost. This is not just the logistics function, but instead needs to be implemented cross-functionally and with the coordination of key suppliers and customers. The objective is to develop a seamless process from the supplier to the organisation and to its various customer segments.

Manufacturing Flow Management

Includes all the activities necessary to move goods through production and to obtain, implement and manage manufacturing flexibility in the supply chain. Manufacturing flexibility reflects the ability to make a wide variety of products at an appropriate rate and at lowest possible cost. To achieve the desired level of manufacturing flexibility, planning and execution must extend beyond the production site to encompass the entire supply chain.

Clearly, managing manufacturing flow requires an element of manpower planning. In the case of SYSPRO, our聽Equator HR聽module integrates with the ERP system to facilitate this planning.

Product Development and Commercialisation

Provides the structure for developing and bringing products to market in unison with customers and suppliers. The product development and commercialisation process team must coordinate with customer relationship management to identify customer articulated and unarticulated needs; select materials and suppliers in conjunction with the supplier relationship management process; and develop production technology in manufacturing flow to manufacture and integrate into the best supply chain flow for a given product/market combination.

Returns Management

Is the SCM process by which activities associated with product returns, reverse logistics, gatekeeping, and avoidance are managed within the firm and across key members of the supply chain. The correct implementation of this process enables management not only to manage the reverse product flow efficiently, but to identify opportunities to reduce unwanted returns and to control reusable assets such as containers. Effective returns management is an important link between marketing and logistics, offering an opportunity for competitive advantage.

LO4:In this phase, decision is taken by the management mostly. The decision to be made considers the sections like long term prediction and involves price of goods that are very expensive if it goes wrong. It is very important to study the market conditions at this stage.

These decisions consider the prevailing and future conditions of the market. They comprise the structural layout of supply chain. After the layout is prepared, the tasks and duties of each is laid out.

All the strategic decisions are taken by the higher authority or the senior management. These decisions include deciding manufacturing the material, factory location, which should be easy for transporters to load material and to dispatch at their mentioned location, location of warehouses for storage of completed product or goods and many more.

LO5：The judicious deployment of supply chain technology and automation tools, techniques and solutions would be the key differentiator in the next decade or so for supply chain professionals across various industry segments/verticals such as manufacturing, automobile, health care, energy, oil & gas, retail, CPG/CPD, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, FMCG, construction, heavy engineering etc.

The degree of investments and the scale and depth of deployment would vary from industry to industry and various supply chain functions within these industries.

Some of the latest technologies and automation solutions impacting global supply chains in varying degrees include:

Digital Manufacturing

3D Printing – Additive Manufacturing

AI – Artificial Intelligence

IOT – Internet of Things

AR/VR – Augmented and Virtual Reality

Blockchain

Robotics

Driverless Vehicles

Advanced Analytics and Big Data – Predictive & Prescriptive

Cloud Computing

This change has impacted every aspect and sub-function within the supply chain right from supply chain design to new product introduction to sourcing to final customer delivery. The rapid transformation that we see around us has been contributed to a large extent through the advent of e-commerce and omni-channel retail.