Essay: Risks And Issues Of Supply Chain Management In NSW - An Overview." (69 Characters)

Main problems with the current logistics network in NSW

Discuss about the Thinking In Construction And Performance Improvement.

A mechanism through which the management of the flow of goods and services, movement and storage of raw materials of working process in inventory and also the finished goods are transferred from the place of production to the point of consumption  and this process is known as supply chain management ( Anvari, Ismail and Hojjati, 2011). The below-executed report is focused on the risks and issues related to the mentioned concept.

Logistics refers to moving or transporting resources from its origin point to the target place according to the requirements of customer or consumer. The resources that are being transferred can be anything like food items and liquid items, animals, groceries, equipment’s, accessories etcetera (Aziz and Hafez, 2013). Managing logistics includes planning, executing the plan and controlling the supply of goods from one place to another and also tracking everything and providing the related information throughout the transfer and of course keeping all the items safe. Being a complex operation logistic management is a very tough task and faces a lot of problems. In one way it’s the best way that aids to the growing economy yet coping with complex mechanism it faces greater issues, likewise in North-South Wale’ current logistics are also getting so much hard to manage to be a huge state with growing population. so there are so many issues that the logistic networks are facing, for example, hiring a large number of labor, managing all the data, increasing energy cost, improving the transport methods, coping with environmental changes, handling a large number of customers at the same time and many more. Some of the many issues that are being faced by NSW are as follow:

Handling and processing a large amount of data-transferring the resources includes heavy amount of work to be done starting from its original place where one picks up the item to be delivered, involving a lot of changes during the journey until the product is delivered to the destination site and to prevent any kind of misunderstanding, it is necessary to manage all the logistic data from origin point to target point. Since it’s a complicated work and one has to be too precautious during the whole transfer (Bicheno and Holweg, 2016). It requires special strategies to manage this huge amount of figures and data, ensuring the safety of the particular product, planning the route and crosschecking the planned route, loading and unloading the goods and last but not the least sanctioning all the bills. Hence it's a time-consuming process and deviates one's attention from the all other basic and important nuances of the whole process.

Coping with the environmental change-climate change has a direct impact on the transportation services. In North South Wales during winter, occurs snowfall which leads to the road jams and it becomes too dangerous to travel on those roads with lots of snow on them and it is too difficult to solve this problem with any other alternatives (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). This condition aids to the transport delays and it becomes hard to travel on the roads as well as trains as the rail tracks get stuck due to heavy snowfall. During the summers also adverse climatic conditions persist. The weather is too hot in summers and due to extremely hot climate logistics get affected, for example, food items that require low temperature for their storage and liquid items or beverages etcetera.

Handling and processing a large amount of data

Managing manpower-logistic management is a huge and complicated tasks and it's not a one-man job it requires a large no. of workers, assigned to a particular job and since it requires so many persons and hiring such a large amount of workers is a great deal but the more important and complex task than that is finding someone who is totally qualified for the job, hence hiring a person is one of the main issues faced by the logistics in NSW (Junior and Mendes, 2017). Once hiring is done then comes managing the manpower and keeping everyone on the same page is important that is why it is the trickiest responsibility.one has maintained a proper behavior with the labor in order to achieve the required goal of the company so handling such a huge amount of labor becomes the bigger task. To make the transport easy the logistic managers place the workers at different locations geographically to maintain the swift flow of goods but it is not as easy as it sounds it's a complex mechanism including lots of plans and strategies implementations.

Customer service-customers wants the whole detail about where their product is, when is it coming and how is it being handled and to meet up with all these requirements customer service is must but handling all these problems like inadequate packaging, taking longer than expected to solve a problem, not able to communicate with the customers etcetera, is the bigger issue here (Bak and Ozlem, 2018). Sometimes in order to deliver the items free, the transport company has to put as many items in a single box as they can which may lead to a destruction of some items while transiting but to save the cost and shipping charges this step is the must. Most of the times due to poor network coverage it becomes hard to communicate with the customers, creating difficult situations both for the receivers as well as the logistic companies. It requires a large no. of labor to handle all the situations hence it is very expensive making it other problems for the logistics network in North South Wales.

Government’s role-Government has a little but powerful role on logistic networks. Transporting industry has to go through several norms and regulations provided by the government.so the logistic network has to face several compliance rules imposed by lawful authorities on all three levels that are national, state and local (Christopher, 2016). The government has launched several policies for the national and state transport:

NSW Freight and Ports Strategy- Transport for NSW-November 2013

Strategic Plan- Northern Territory Department of Transport-2013-2014-2018

Fuel expenses- Due to the increase in fuel prices it is very hard to maintain all the expenses which are fuel related to transport business requires a lot of fuel expenditure. Escalating fuel charges aids to an increased cost of transportation making it difficult to handle such high expenses (Fredendall and Hill, 2016). High energy cost has put a lot of transporting companies under mounting pressure.

Coping with the environmental change

Following all rules and regulations- Some of the logistic networks also transport the required resource internationally and while doing so they have to go through different sets of rules and regulations of that particular country and it is mandatory to follow all these rules and if they fail to do so they might have to go through several charges and jurisdiction and procedures (Mangan and Lalwani, 2016).

Improving delivery standards-customers put a lot of pressure on the logistic industry in order to get the product delivered on the time but sometimes it is not possible due to several reasons like sudden weather change in NSW, their winters are cold and dry including heavy snowfall and summers are too hot, traffic problems, not able to contact with the customers, transportation issues due to snowfall or railway tracks getting stuck with the snow etcetera which they have no control over, yes it can be managed but it takes longer than expected so to overcome all these issues logistic networks have to work on different methods and strategies to improve the standards of the delivery (Monczka, Handfield, Giunipero and Patterson, 2015).

Customer-supplier coordination-suppliers ensures full transparency to the customer during the whole transit and providing all the little details to a customer but sometimes it becomes harder than expected due to poor network conditions or inability to contact the customer and in order to solve the customer issues logistic organizations has to maintain a rhythmic connection with the customers. Suppliers have to notice every little detail of the transit to make sure the whole process is going smoothly without any interruptions. It’s the crucial part of the whole operation if the timing is not co-ordinated it might create a difficult situation both for the customer as well as the transport company.

ACFS Port Logistics had confirmed that it had acquired the empty container depot operations for Kerry logistics subsided in Adelaide. And in addition, ACFS had an agreement with them with respect to managing a fair amount of property lease interests and leasing which will allow the company to move its warehousing and transport facility to Gillman.

The acquirement was effective from June 1^st, 2017 and the empty container operations were rebranded from this date only.

When this facility was taken over it was a full bitumen facility which was sealed and was approx. 27000sqm in size which included 4500sqm of the warehousing and 40 points reefer for the managing and storage of those reefers.

Their latest acquisition was complementing the $10 million+ investment which ACFS and their related companies were undertaking the port of Fremantle which was expected to complete in 2017.

Arthur Tzaneros (CEO) stated that it completed the national footprint in all the important Ports in Australia of the empty container depots, but majorly allows ACFS to incorporate the service which offers connecting the customers for the alignment shipping lines at the best cost outcomes solution (Ross, 2013).

The relocation of the warehousing and the transport departments for a new site also allowed the ACFS business models which were offered to national customers for replicating and expanding it in the Adelaide market.

Managing manpower

Terry Tzaneros (chairman) said that while the Adelaide deal was important for completing the domestic strategy, the business was looking for the channel of strategic opportunities and acquisitions in the country as well as internationally for the ACFS Port Logistics Landside business.

ACFS was looking for a driving change and to implement the efficiency in Adelaide market for transporting carriers and shipping lines with the increased operating hours implemented and the Containterchain E-Gate implementation with the investment of a brand new twin container forklifts.

If any company is in the industry for providing a variety of services and products it is very important for the business to keep the service levels at the top no matter if there are changes and could be happening all the time in all areas of the business organization (Schönsleben, 2016). It is imperative for companies which are complex in structure or which have a very fluctuating supply chain, specific customers in specific countries to serve for.

Top strategies for logistics are:

• Leveraging the predicted volumes to decrease price. Getting providers who can offer service levels needed at a challenging price when you don't have the historical detail to rely on. This happens when the volume which is predicted become important. And to position this properly with significant discounts the outcome will help improve the cash advantage. In logistics strategy, the partners are all about real, leverage or predicted.
• Demand-driven logistics (scm.ncsu 2017). The matching of the demand for the products supply goes beyond the reduction in the transport cost. When the company starts practicing demand-driven logistics the cost of transportation costs are lessened but the saving for changing information and inventory for a better customer service is more important. Aligning the business to practice these logistics provides for the strategic benefits for the complete enterprise.
• Sales and operations planning. S&OP is a strategy where the primary functions of the business like sales, marketing, warehousing finance and transportation become a team. To discuss and review the business activities. It not only includes sales and operations but also the parties who affect or are impacted by the regular activities. This should be called team effort which means a common set of goals and the togetherness for achieving these goals. The meeting is supposed to be held frequently and should also have the definite set of tools and reports to help in regular notifications and check-ups. Meetings should short and focused and should avoid any kind of confrontation. They should be about addressing the long term and short goals (Waters and Rinsler, 2014). A commitment by all the parties to think beyond the functional silos which haunt the companies. It should become an important component of the culture of the company. If properly executed a solid S&OP can do more than single strategy logistics and can better the chances of success. If the team is in sync, the individual areas will turn into towards focusing on how effectively address the parts of the process and understanding the goals. If the S&OP is not there, there will be goals but will not be aligned with other business functions.
• To get an experienced logistician who has good interpersonal skills and very well connected to the supply chain world and has a great financial acumen.
• Understanding business mission and reflecting on the corporate strategy and accordingly plan for it. The supply chain process infrastructure involves the facilities where the equipment is used for the information systems and that is how you organize people (Rushton, Croucher and Baker, 2014)).
• The corporate strategy is how you will identify the various markets and the competitive strategy and to develop a supply chain strategy for the markets which tailor the supply chain processes.
• Defining the goals that you seek to achieve. The supply chain strategy helps the goals of the business so that the strategy aligns with it and helps achieve organization goals. The second goal is how the strategy works for the higher level goals (Brown, Blackmon, Cousins and Maylor, 2013).
• Gain end to end visibility of the network and analyses the cost performance. It begins with building a strong transaction foundation. Often it means joining hands with a third-party logistics provider who has processes, people, and technology to implement and gain clarity and service performance and track and report cost (Weele, 2009)). The companies made sure that they will have the right people for executing and optimizing the network and for this the entity will have a team of transport professionals with a real-world experience and a strong academic skill. Once the company has there is a strong base for information there is no need for analyzing the data and then optimizing the rate. It is in two levels strategic and tactical. The shippers' analyses the cost daily of service to look how they have a carrier performance and service issues.

The business relationships can often lead to disputes. There might be a disagreement for a business might not have lived up to the expectations or a retail lease. If anyone has a dispute in the business it is time-consuming and frustrating. The stress is expensive. The commercial disputes and negotiations may have broken down NSW government will help in resolution services. Mediation is one method of resolving the issues at business. The staff manages the process of mediation (Myerson, 2012). The expertise is given for the strategic advice and also helps parties find a resolution. Often there is a session every time where both the parties have listened. The staff formally solves the disputes and gives a commercial experience. Most parties work out problems for tribunal decisions. This is the informal mediation service. Where they help to identify the areas of focus and importantly let choose one side. When they too complex they are dealt on a phone where everyone sits down and work out the issues.

References

Anvari, A., Ismail, Y. and Hojjati, S.M.H. (2011) A study on total quality management and lean manufacturing: through lean thinking approach. World applied sciences journal, 12(9), pp.1585-1596.

Aziz, R.F. and Hafez, S.M. (2013) Applying lean thinking in construction and performance improvement. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 52(4), pp.679-695.

Bak, and Ozlem, (2018) E-Business and Supply Chain Integration: Strategies and Case Studies from Industry. Kogan Page Publishers,

Bicheno, J. and Holweg, M. (2016) The Lean toolbox: The essential guide to Lean transformation. Picsie Books.

Brown, S., Blackmon, K., Cousins, P. and Maylor, H. (2013) Operations management: policy, practice and performance improvement. New York: Routledge.

Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.

Fredendall, L. D., and Hill, E. (2016). Basics of supply chain management. CRC Press.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B. (2014) Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Junior , M.J.A.P. and Mendes , J.V.(2017) Operational Practices of Lean Manufacturing: Potentiating  Environmental Improvements. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management.10(4),pp. 550-580.

Mangan, J., and Lalwani, C. (2016). Global logistics and supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.

Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., and Patterson, J. L. (2015). Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.

Myerson, P. (2012) Lean supply chain and logistics management. Colombus: McGraw-Hill.

Ross, D. F. (2013). Competing through supply chain management: creating market-winning strategies through supply chain partnerships. Springer Science & Business Media.

Rushton, A., Croucher, P. and Baker, P. (2014) The handbook of logistics and distribution management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.

Schönsleben, P. (2016). Integral logistics management: operations and supply chain management within and across companies. CRC Press.

scm.ncsu, (2017) [Online].  What is supply chain management (SCM)?, Available at:, https://scm.ncsu.edu/scm-articles/article/what-is-supply-chain-management. [Assessed on 25^th May 2018].

Van Weele, A.J. (2009) Purchasing & supply chain management: analysis, strategy, planning and practice. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Waters, D., and Rinsler, S. (2014). Global logistics: New directions in supply chain management. Kogan Page Publishers.