Supply Chain Management

1. Choose one of the 4 key tenets of good supply chains, describe it, then identify a company that has had a problem with one (any one) of the tenets and describe the challenge.

2. The Barilla Spa case put forward an idea for JIT distribution (JITD) or now better known as Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) … a concept now made popular by Walmart among others.  Investigate how Walmart has used VMI as a key element in their Every Day Low Pricing model to the market.  Specifically tell me about how they communicate demand to suppliers, how inventory from suppliers is stored and moved up and down the (echelon) supply chain, and how/when suppliers are paid for their products.