Essay: Trip 7 Screen Printing And American Apparel: A Customer Service Problem.

Company Background

Recently, Mike Kitchen, the production manager for Trip 7 Screen Printing, has been having problems with the company's main supplier of t-shirts. For several years now, Mr. Kitchen has ordered t-shirts from American Apparel, the largest t-shirt vendor in the United States, located in Los Angeles, California. He is preparing for a telephone conversation with the sales manager at American Apparel. Two days ago, he called customer service, and they put him on hold for 90 minutes. According to Mike, "It is now time for results."

Trip 7 Screen Printing started in 1991. The company is located in Columbus, Ohio. Trip 7 Screen Printing specializes in custom screen printing and embroidery of textile products such as t-shirts, golf shirts, dress shirts, hats, bags, and sweatpants. The company also offers common promotional items such as pens and coffee mugs and even some unique items such as custom chocolates and Swiss army knives.

The company prides itself on pleasing its customers. Trip 7 Screen Printing of­fers free consultation services on artwork, garments, retail programs, and uniform programs. It also promises timely delivery of the finished products to the customer by trying to meet each individual customer's deadline. In order to accomplish such a demanding task of meeting each and every customer deadline, Trip 7 Screen Printing uses forecasts based on past sales history. The company's overall goal is to focus 99.99% on customer care.

Trip 7's screen-printing facility offers up to six colours per item on a wide variety of textile products. Also, Trip 7 Screen Printing uses only Tajima embroidery equipment, which has long been the forerunner in the embroidery industry.

Trip 7 has done screen printing and/ or embroidery products for several companies, restaurants, organizations, schools, and so forth. Some of these include FedEx, Ballet Met's performances, The Blue Bird Club, Buckeye Cafe, Byrne's Pub, Children's Hospital, and the San Quinton baseball team; Trip 7 also provides services to walk-in customers.

Screen printing is a print process where a design is transferred to a substrate by way of a screen. Inks are transferred through a screen to the garment to achieve the desired result. This involves exact pressures, specialized inks, and heat curing. The result of these processes is a long-lasting design.

The following is a step-by-step procedure of the screen-printing process:

1. Conceive artwork and send it to the computer for processing of a composite proof that specifies the colours, size, and location.
2. Create output film on vellum paper and make into screens.
3. Preregister artwork and check it for detail and quality.
4. Coatthescreenswithphotosensitiveemulsion.
5. Dry the screens and place them on a vacuum light table, which exposes the screens to a 3,000-watt metal halide light that burns the image onto the screen.
6. Wash out the screen with a pressurized washer at around 1,300 psi.
7. Double-check for accuracy.
8. Block, tape, set up, and squeegee press the design onto the garment by colour (each colour utilizes a separate screen).
9. Flash (dry) ink between each colour layer, which takes about one to two min­utes per shirt.
10. Repeat steps seven, eight, and nine for each colour in the design.

In the past, Trip 7 Screen Printing has had strong relations with American Apparel. American Apparel offers a wide variety of products, and even carries some not-so-common products such as the fitted ladies' polo t-shirt. With a wide variety of products from its supplier, Trip 7 Screen Printing is able to accommodate the various requests from its own customers. Trip 7 Screen Printing provides American Apparel with a considerable amount of business, over $250,000 in sales per year.

But within the past couple of months, Mr. Kitchen has been unhappy with the growing number of backorders American Apparel has had on Trip 7's orders. The situation has become such a problem that Mr. Kitchen has estimated that at least 25% of his t-shirt orders are backordered through American Apparel. He has contacted the American Apparel customer service representatives several times and has not received the results that he had expected. As a result, Trip 7 Screen Printing has had trouble making customer deadlines. The company also is incurring extra costs from its growing number of expediting orders from American Apparel and having to pay its employees overtime.

Mr. Kitchen knows that when Trip 7 Screen Printing fails to meet a customer's deadline, the company is breaking its promise to provide 99.99% customer care. If American Apparel cannot deliver its t-shirts to Trip 7 Screen Printing in a timely fashion, customer service will diminish. Being able to promise timely deliveries to its customers is a key competitive advantage for Trip 7 Screen Printing.

During the past two days, you were able to research alternative suppliers for Mr. Kitchen. The following table (next page) shows the comparison of t-shirt suppliers.

1. Read the case on Trip 7 Screen Printing and discuss how Mr. Kitchen should approach the current situation.

2. Read the following article and explain what you understand by static vs. dynamic view of the supply base. Which view is more strategic and why?

Melnyk, Steven A., Cooper, M. Bixby, Griffis, Stanley E., Macdonald, John R., & Phillips, Cheryl L.M. (2010). Supplier base management: A new competitive edge.(DEVELOPMENT). Supply Chain Management Review, 14(4), 35–41.

1. A good and efficient relationship with the supplier is very important, particularly for the companies that solely depend on the providers or suppliers in specific. This is relatable with the Trip 7 Screen Printing Company as it also rely on its unique supplier named American Apparel. Although, all through these years, their relation has been completely satisfactory but very recently, certain issues with the orders have become a serious problem for the part of Trip 7 Screen Printing Company. These issues have influenced the quality of the services of the company in context to delivering the products to the customers within the deadline. Being in a continuous communication with the suppliers, meeting with the payments and at the same time, being transparent in what both the parties need during the times of generating any order allows the supplier deliver quality services and products as well as help him in achieving all the requirements and expectations of the customers (Revilla and Knoppen 2015). Hence, it is very important to build a good relationship with the suppliers who supply the products to the company because without their cooperation, it is next to impossible for any company to conduct its business in effective manner (Hugos 2018). It is one of the most important characteristics that every company need to take into consideration for succeeding in the business environment. It allows them in getting good and productive results for their business and improving the quality of their inputs. Furthermore, an efficient and properly done coordination with the vendors would help the companies in producing better final products that in turn would further help in generating higher level of customer satisfaction and also, in generating higher rate of sales for the very business. However, although the relationship in between Trip 7 and American Apparel was great all through these years, but now, it is not the same anymore. For certain reason (not highlighted in the case study), the customer service department of American Apparel has not treated Mike well and they put him on hold for a long duration. This disappointed Mike to a great extent.

Hence, it is suggested that in order to prevent future supply uncertainties, Mike should working with more than one supplier rather than solely depending on a single supplier, which is very risky. It should do its business with multiple suppliers and must maintain a good relationship with each one of them and this will guarantee availability, although would also increase the cost. However, it is also to be noted that this does not mean that Trip 7 need to change the supplier. In fact, it is suggested that Mike should talk with the manager of American Apparel directly and try to solve out the matter instead of changing it but at the same time, it should also look for certain relevant and reliable suppliers within the country that he could do his business with.  After all, Trip 7 is doing business with American Apparel from several years and also, American Apparel has a wide variety and quality of products to offer and these are indeed two important factors to take into consideration. Although it would increase the costs but it would also guarantee availability and customer satisfaction by providing the customers right product within the promised deadline. This is very important for a business like Trip 7’s. With the same, in this current business environment, it is no longer productive to be locked into and engaged with a single contract for a particular service (Sadic, de Sousa and Crispim 2015). Instead, today, companies all over the world are employing more than two suppliers for the same service and as per the recent survey conducted in the year 2016, those who have adopted this strategy of using more than one supplier are better able to negotiate the costs much more effectively and have seen a notable improvement in the quality of service that they receive (Saghafian and Van Oyen 2016). With the same, it has also been found that these people are also typically in a much better position for managing the cash flow as well as initiating a contingency plan if any supplier is not able to offer the agreed service at a short period notice. This strategy of contracting two suppliers at a time for the very same service would provide Mike Kitchen a greater leverage when it comes to finding out the best suppliers in a specific field (Cabral 2017).

Process of Screen Printing

Moreover, if Trip 7 would have established a clear and achievable goals with the American Apparel at the very beginning of the business partnership only. This is due to the fact that it is the key of fulfilment of the overall objective of the business. A good target that is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) is very important. With the same, it is also very crucial that the key performance indicators like the financial projections, the quality, payment terms, customer care standards and the pricing standards are set as per the certain requirements of the business. Most of the wholesalers need estimates of the number of products does a retailer expects within a certain time period in order to gain a better understanding about the number of items the suppliers or the wholesalers need to order themselves (Oshri, Kotlrsky and Willcocks 2015). Therefore, providing a clear cut sales estimation helps the vendors to plan in proper way. Furthermore, due to the fact that suppliers serve the both- the business and its competitors, therefore they are required to maintain a huge number of relationships. Hence, it is very helpful for the part of the suppliers to understand what the retailers require from them so that they could facilitate their relationship. It helps them in removing the guesswork and make their life easier and this is really great for every relationship. Hence, Trip 7 should give some specific documentation which is filled out, emailed and properly scanned when the goods are been delivered. This is something that most of the suppliers seek for. Ensuring that American Apparel is receiving these documents by means of preferred channel could help them in speeding up the processing process of the orders.

2. Firstly, it is to note that Supply base refers to an activity which helps in incorporating the current, potential as well as even the past suppliers of a company. The process of supply base management is a 360 degree approach for managing supplier base of a company. However, from the given case study it is understood that a static view of supply base refers to the view where change is not considered and on the other hand, a dynamic view of supply base refers to the view where supplier base is constantly changing. More often, the view of the supply base or the supplier base is static and limited in nature (Melnyk 2010). This is considered to be an old view which regards only the suppliers which the companies at present deal with and which focuses on the management of the prevailing relationships. Such a view completely ignores the fact that there also exists other supply chains that often compete with the similar set of resources. On the contrary, the new view, which is considered to be much more strategic, takes a much more holistic approach to the supplier base management. Furthermore, it lay focus on a larger set of suppliers, which is both potential and current. This strategic view recognises that the supplier relationships and the supplier base are dynamic, which means- the desired results from the supplier base might comprise of many competitive dimensions and that the competitive supply chains need more close attention (Miemczyk, Howard and Johnsen 2016). The static view of supply base focuses on the current relationship, while the dynamic view of supply base focuses on both the current and the future relationship with the suppliers (Forkmann et al. 2016). From the static view, the supplier base performance is measured in terms of cost and quality. On the other hand, from the dynamic view, the supplier base is measured in terms of multiple dimensions which also comprise the cost and the quality. More specifically, it depends on the desired results. While linking the supply chain to the value and strategy, it has been found in the case study that the supply chain needs to be more complex and more dynamic rather than static (Melnyk 2010). Hence, it is to state that the Dynamic view of supply base is more strategic. Furthermore, it is clear from the case study that as the supply chains transition from being value driven, strategically decouples and at the same time, is price driven to strategically coupled, the systems as well as the tools that are used by the professionals of the supply chain require to move from the tactical process to strategic one, that is- from static to dynamic one as well as from the narrowly focused to the broad system oriented. This is due to the fact that the dynamic view is more strategic and more productive in nature.

References:

Cabral, S., 2017. Reconciling conflicting policy objectives in public contracting: the enabling role of capabilities. Journal of Management Studies, 54(6), pp.823-853.

Forkmann, S., Henneberg, S.C., Naude, P. and Mitrega, M., 2016. Supplier relationship management capability: A qualification and extension. Industrial Marketing Management, 57, pp.185-200.

Hugos, M.H., 2018. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.

Melnyk, S.A., 2010. Supplier base management: a new competitive edge. Supply Chain Management Review, 14(4).

Miemczyk, J., Howard, M. and Johnsen, T.E., 2016. Dynamic development and execution of closed-loop supply chains: a natural resource-based view. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 21(4), pp.453-469.

Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J. and Willcocks, L.P., 2015. Supplier Selection, Retained Management Capabilities and Legal Issues. In The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring (pp. 158-190). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Revilla, E. and Knoppen, D., 2015. Building knowledge integration in buyer-supplier relationships: The critical role of strategic supply management and trust. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(10), pp.1408-1436.

Sadic, S., de Sousa, J.P. and Crispim, J.A., 2015, October. Flexibility in the Formation and Operational Planning of Dynamic Manufacturing Networks. In Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises (pp. 604-611). Springer, Cham.

Saghafian, S. and Van Oyen, M.P., 2016. Compensating for dynamic supply disruptions: Backup flexibility design. Operations Research, 64(2), pp.390-405.