Introduction:
Target Corporation headquartered in Minnesota, US is a popular discount retailer. It is second to Walmart in terms of net operating income and revenues. The various products offered includes sports accessories, healthcare, beauty products, house ware, clothing, fashion apparels, electronics, garden supply, jewelry, pet and food products. The report shows an analysis from the manufacture’s perspective in terms of the various products offered. A set of products selected for the study shows the various procurement activities and delivery of the same. In order to get a better understanding of the products offered a value stream mapping has been done for one of its products. The process map shows the operating time and order to service of a product and also suggests the improvements which can be brought to the existing system. The report also states on the nature of ordering, and justifies its marketing as a push marketing strategy. It also shows the how the company has been able to forecast the demand to manufacture based on the customer requirement. (https://corporate.target.com/about/history/Target-through-the-years, 2016)
Products offered by the company and development process
The products offered by the target corporation includes a major brands of products dealing in sports accessories, healthcare, beauty products, house ware, clothing, fashion apparels, electronics, garden supply, jewelry, pet and food products. Most of the brands of target are manufactured by specialty items for individual products. Some of the popular brands include are Adidas, Ajax, Armani, Skippy, T-Mobile, Tatco, RedBull. While the company features numerous popular brands it also features some brands which are privately owned. The brand owned by the company includes Up& UP and bull’s-eye. For the purpose of studying the process mapping the brand Bulls eye have been selected. The bulls eye brand of target deals in product such as soft toys, clothing accessories, and drink ware items such as bottles, mugs, tumblers and office stationeries. Monczka et al., 2015)
The clothing section of target manufactures crew neck T-shirts which is considered to be a popular selling item for the company. The improvement of this particular product has been shown with a value stream mapping clearly stating the value added time (VAT) for individual production processes and net value added time (NVAT) for the same processes. The company is known to provide after sales services for electronic products and various household products such as Washing machine, microwave ovens and kitchen chimney. The company also provides range of retail items though ecommerce. The procurement process of the company us based on internal process. Target outsources employees in Bengaluru, India with a team of over 2500 members (https://corporate.target.com/press/corporate, 2016).
![Target Outsources Employees]()
The above model clearly states the supply chain retail pickup procedure of Target Corporations. The model clearly states the point of procurement of order from the distributors of various brands followed by placing the orders on pallets and also checking of various constraints such as selection of the pick zone and ensuring that there is no overstock of materials in the pick zone. Based on the flowchart pick cases on pallets at intermediate consolidation point are done as a general process for all the processes. The flow model also states the various justifications if the picked cases are not based on the primary zone of the production materials. (Anderson et al., 2013).
In order to improve the manufacturing process of the crewneck T-shirt from the bulls eye line of products of the company the following value stream mapping has been used to address the various problems related to reduced lead time and making suggestions to improve the same. The given model is base on the weekly orders forecast based on the purchase decision of the various customers. Based on the model it can be seen that at first the assembling of the materials supplied is done. The fabric material of the t-shirt is collected for the purpose of the segregation. The dyeing of the materials is done in the dyeing center. The value added time for the individual production processes has been calculated as 197 min and the net value added time for the production process is observed as 12 hours. The model includes all the necessary activities till it is packed and made ready for dispatching to the customers (Rothaermel, 2015)
The VSM model has been shown below as follows:
Improvement process in the present value chain:
The improvement process of the target corporation starts with acceptability factor. It should put more emphasis on the total customer order while ordering for more supplies. In this way it can avoid overstocking of the materials and reduce the net value added time for the manufacturing of various products under the bull’s eye brand. In order to improve the present flow of the manufacturing of the items the company can incorporate critical path analysis so that it can further improve the lean manufacturing process and improve the lead time of ordering the items. The various other factors such as competitor’s analysis like Wal-Mart will help the company in better understanding of the ecommerce activities and the ways the competitors has been able to improve the revenues than Target corporations. The company can also reduce its no. of defective clothing manufactured by implementation of six sigma process. (Evans & Lindsay,2014).
Reviewing of the ordering process of the company
Based on the VSM model and the basic process mapping diagram, it can stated that the company is a make to stock company. The basic objective of the supply chain operation of the company is to meet the customers demand. As target corporation is a leading discount retailer chain is done on the basis on the make to stock. The company also deals in several FMCG products the make to stock ordering process is ideal for such situations. The stock updating and the process of inventory planning are based on the weekly demand of the consumers and the stock is updated accordingly. In case of make to order cycle the orders are based on the customer preferences. (Ciarapica et al., 2016)
Conclusion
The report gives a detailed analysis of the various retail products available at target corporations. Based on the study it can be observed that target deals in various brand of items and it is mix of major retail brands and it’s privately owned brand. This shows that the company is responsible for outsourcing of the products of the other brands base on the customer forecast and demand order. The retail picking process is shown with the help of a process flow chart. The information on the present manufacturing time has been shown with a value stream mapping. The report also suggests on the various improvements which can be made on the present system of operations. Target corporation is lagging behind in the ecommerce section and it need to improve its service in terms of availability of products and timely delivery of the same in compare to other competitors like Amazon and Walmart.
Reference List
Anderson, L. M., Jabczenski, J. R., Schwaegerle, L., Meier, F. A., & Sharma, G. (2013). Implementation of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to Measure Baseline Process Capacity at a Medical Center Laboratory. American Journal of Clinical Pathology, 140(suppl 1), A227-A227.
Ciarapica, F. E., Bevilacqua, M., & Mazzuto, G. (2016). Performance analysis of new product development projects: an approach based on value stream mapping. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 65(2).
Deshpande, A. A., Hendrix, K. D., Mcfaddin, H. S., & Narayanaswami, C. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 20,150,294,395. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Evans, J., & Lindsay, W. (2014). An introduction to Six Sigma and process improvement. Cengage Learning.
https://corporate.target.com/about/history/Target-through-the-years. (2016). Retrieved 29 May 2016, from https://corporate.target.com/about/history/Target-through-the-years
https://corporate.target.com/press/corporate. (2016).Retrieved 29 May 2016, from https://corporate.target.com/press/corporate
Konina, O. V., Natenadze, E. D., & Simonov, A. B. (2014). Entrepreneurial Culture and Management Style: Overview and Formation Mechanism. World Applied Sciences Journal, 30(9), 1109-1112.
Monczka, R., Handfield, R., Giunipero, L., & Patterson, J. (2015). Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Rahani, A. R., & al-Ashraf, M. (2012). Production flow analysis through value stream mapping: a lean manufacturing process case study. Procedia Engineering, 41, 1727-1734.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill.
