Logistics & Supply Chain Management For Accommodating Demands

Questions: 1. What is the business of Sinosteel, what are its major challenges, and how would an ERP system address the challenges they face? 2. Why did Sinosteel pursue the development of an ERP system? What were the objectives? What challenges (risks) does ERP address for Sinosteel ? [The CEO is difficult to understand on some of the objectives, but later in the video an IT manager is clearer and reflects the CEOs position almost exactly. You will need to listen carefully] 3. What factors were important in the choice of Oracle? 4. How did business processes change in order to implement this ERP system? 5. What do you think some of the implementation issues and risks might have been with this system? 6. How did this investment in ERP systems help Sinosteel achieve operational excellence? 7. What do you think were the benefits of installing this system give the substantial costs involved? Answers: 1. What is the business of Sinosteel, what are its major challenges, and how would an ERP system address the challenges they face? The business of Sinosteel is to produce and process the metallurgical mineral resources, trading and logistics of raw materials, and it is also in providing engineering technical service and manufacturing equipments. Major challenges are improving the management and overwhelming its lack of centralisation. Gaining efficiency in building customer relationship and managing human resources. Through ERP the internal management can be improved and optimised by common sharing of information, with SCM resources can be better managed and through CRM company can achieve high customer satisfaction 2. Why did Sinosteel pursue the development of an ERP system? What were the objectives? What challenges (risks) does ERP address for Sinosteel ? [The CEO is difficult to understand on some of the objectives, but later in the video an IT manager is clearer and reflects the CEOs position almost exactly. You will need to listen carefully] Sinosteel adopted ERP system because there was lack of standardisation, the information was decentralised and managing the corporate information was getting risky which would lead to dangerous misunderstandings. Objective was to gain efficiency in all functions of business by sharing the information. 3. What factors were important in the choice of Oracle? Oracle is a leader in enterprise resource management with excellent applications and advance technologies and relative flexible platform. Also it is easy to learn, administer and maintain 4. How did business processes change in order to implement this ERP system? They change in order to deliver a business inside, adapting to the industry processes and gaining superior ownership experience. Thus through ERP system efficient management of all business processes and functions can be achieved. 5. What do you think some of the implementation issues and risks might have been with this system? The major risk is to integrate the systems of companies which Sinosteel has merged with. For integration proper staff is required and handling the resistance of staff to adopt new system will also be a major risk. 6. How did this investment in ERP systems help Sinosteel achieve operational excellence? What do you think were the benefits of installing this system give the substantial costs involved? By increasing the speed of response, information quality and high degree of automation and reducing the business costs. Benefits will be improved competitiveness, improved decision making and reduction in business cost. 7. What are some common types of malicious software, or malware? What best describes the man-in-the-middle type of attacks? Adware, bot, bug, ransomware, rootkit, spyware, Trojan horse, virus and worm are malware. A man-in-the-middle describes how attacker intercepts messages in a public key exchange and retransmits them, submitting his own public key for the requested one, so that the two original parties still appear to be communicating with each other. Provide some examples of each type of authentication factor. What are your personal experiences with each? Authentication factor is a piece of information which is used to verify the identity of a person requesting access to a restricted area. Example is Personal factor which is used to recover passwords. Till date I have no personal experience for such technology. Can you think of any drawbacks of the ZTIC device? Drawback with ZTC device is that it initiates transactions on computer with malware installed by compromising the security. The padlocked areas of internet which is secure can also not protect against it. How might malicious attackers try to get around devices like the ZTIC? Hackers through malwares modify the data when it is sent to banks web server but displays the information to consumer intended in the browser. Man-in-the-middle attacks is also effective even if the customer s using OTP. ZTIC bypasses the browser and goes directly to bank and ensures accurate data exchange. Do you foresee a future where malware is completely eliminated, or protections are so good that malware is no longer a threat? Explain your answer. With the growth in technology cyber attacks will get common and will become difficult for the anti-malware companies to protect us from cyber crimes. Thus I completely believe that malware practices will not be completely eliminated and in coming future with advancements in internet it will become a major threat. Which business process are the most important at Summit Electric Supply? Why? The most important business process is ERP software, NetWeaver BW data from SAP. The importance of these processes for Summit Electric as it connected 19 locations, satisfied business requirements. It helped the company in staying more organised and controlling how much information has to be produced and distributed. What problems did Summit have with its old systems? What was the business impact of those problems? The old system was delaying the supplies. The old system was complicated as it separated different categories which made difficult to combine when needed. The impact of old system on business was that it was not able to keep up with the business, limited the business to handle few numbers and locations, brought delays and took lot of time in task completion. How did Summits ERP system improve operational efficiency and decision making? Give several examples It was improved by advancing the operations, the supplies were built and distributed faster on time. The old system was very time consuming, for eg collecting and reviewing the invoices took a months time and increased the stack of invoices to be given to vendors. With new ERP the invoices were produced more fastly and accurately. The ERP system provided tools to company to evaluate the sales-channel which benefited the company to evaluate the profitability inters of branch wise, sales person and customers. Describe two ways in which Summits customers benefit from the new ERP system. Customers can now rely on company for their needs and products. Customers can receive their orders in short period of time. They can also track how much wire they have ordered and from which manufacturer it is coming from. Secondly large customers who are having long-term job sites are getting benefits from new ERP system. The company has built on-site temporary warehouses to supply electrical products to customers by creating parent-child warehouse relationship. Through this, it will prevent anybody from selling the consigned inventory into the warehouse. Draw diagram Summits old and new process for handling chargerbacks. With the old process company was losing money and was not making profits. A lot of manual work was required, as they have to go the customer invoices for detailed manufacturers to identify which chargeback they can claim. Whereas the new process for handling the chargeback was efficient as it automatically reviewed the Summits billing activity and compare it with all chargebacks agreements loaded into SAP system. So when there was any match they are able to claim it. Thus this full automated ERP system has increased the company claim by 118% over the old system. Review Questions Identify and describe three major enterprise applications. Enterprise system: It is based on a suite of integrated software modules and a common central database. It utilizes enterprise softwares to support finance, accounting, HR, manufacturing etc processes. Its benefits are improving the management reporting and information sharing, decision making and efficiency in customer-driven approaches. Supply Chain Management: helps company in managing its supply chain by proper planning, sourcing, production, delivery and return of items. It also helps the firm in generating demand forecasts for its product and developing sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product. Its benefits are improved customer service, responsiveness, cash utilization and cost reduction Customer Relationship Management: CRM helps firms to maximize the benefits of customer assets. It can be classified as operational or analytical. Operational CRM refers to customer facing applications like sales force automation and Analytical CRM deals with analyzing the customer data to provide information for improving the business performance. Its benefits are increased customer satisfaction, reduce direct marketing cost and more effective marketing. Describe the challenges of global supply chains and how Internet technology can help companies manage them better. Firms use intranets to improve coordination among their internal supply chain processes, and extranets to coordinate supply chain processes shared with their business partners. Using intranets and extranets, all members of the supply chain can instantly communicate with each other, using up-to-date information to adjust purchasing, logistics, manufacturing, packaging, and schedules. A manager can use a Web interface to tap into suppliers systems to determine whether inventory and production capabilities match demand for the firms products. Business partners can use Web-based supply chain management tools to collaborate online with suppliers and customers. Sales representatives can access suppliers production schedules and logistics information to monitor customers order status. The Internet has introduced new ways of managing warehousing, shipping, and packaging based on access to supply chain information that can give companies an edge in delivering goods and services at a reasonabl e cost. Distinguish between a push-based and pull-based model of supply chain management and explain how contemporary supply chain management systems facilitate a pull-based model. Push-based supply chain is based on production master schedules which are based on forecasting from product demands. Pull-based supply chain is based on actual customer orders or purchases so that suppliers can product that amount which is required by the customers. Pull system is better because there will no wastages. Describe how partner relationship management (PRM) and employee relationship management (ERM) are related to customer relationship management (CRM)? PRM uses same data, tools and systems as CRM to enhance collaboration between a company and its selling partners. If a company do not sell directly to customers but rather works through distributors or retailers, PRM helps these channels sell to customers directly. ERM software deals with employee issues that are closely related to CRM such as setting objectives, employee performance management, performance-based compensation and employees training Describe the tools and capabilities of customer relationship management software for sales, marketing, and customer service. Sales: The sales force automation module helps sales staff to increase their productivity by focusing sales on profitable customers, it also provide sales prospect and contact information, sales quote, product information etc. Better coordination between sales, marketing and delivery department. Customer Service: Tools to make more efficient call centres, help desks and staff support, include capabilities for assigning and managing customer service requests and also include web-based self-service capabilities. Marketing: supports direct marketing campaigns by providing campaigns by providing capabilities for capturing prospects and customer data, providing product and service information. Tools for analyzing marketing and customer data, identifying profitable and non-profitable customers and identifying opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling and bundling. You have been hired by Santori, Inc., a small company that imports and distributes an Italian sparkling water. The company is interested in what benefits an enterprise system would bring. Would an enterprise system be appropriate for this company? What steps would you take in determining this? For smaller companies enterprise software packages should be used because enterprise systems are expensive. Therefore to implement an enterprise system in an economical manner a hosted enterprise application must be used. In order to determine appropriateness of Enterprise system for Santori I will first analyze the existing business processes, whether they are meeting the efficiency and gains competition with other businesses in their niche. Then I will review the existing hosted applications to check whether they match up with Santoris. Thus it is important to compare the cost of instituting the new business processes with the benefits and cost savings. List and describe the information requirements of HPCs new management system. What problems was the new system designed to solve? Information Requirement Problem was the new system designed to solved Reliable report Report that are able to accurately measure management performance and provide useful, accurate information for increasing sales and reducing costs. Unsanitized Data Report must be up to date, no need to sanitize to look better to senior management Fast Report Anytime access to report and from anywhere Enterprise wide visiblity Can access and share data easily across the various business units and fucntions To what extent were people problems affecting management decision making at HPC? What were some of the management, organisation and technology issues that had to be addressed by the new system? How did the systemss designers make the system more people friendly? The HPC managers were playing with the numbers and preparing stale reports so as to make their department look better to senior managers and presented the reports in periodic intervals. Managers were delaying the reports and do not wanted to be overloaded with unnecessary data. The new system should be user-friendly, show updated information in meetings, provide access to data at any time with more accuracy and timelier picture of organisations performance. The system is designed people-friendly by providing access to multiple locations, user friendly screen and data entry forms, easy and simple updations, easy troubleshooting and more efficient. What role did end users play in developing HPCs new system? How did the project team make sure users were involved? What would have happened to the project if they had not done this? The end users played the role in helping the project information systems department by providing them the existing report that they already used. The project team ensured that the users attended training program for accessing new system. They also encouraged the new users to start using the new system and discussed the benefits of using new system. The information system department also ran campaigns to ensure that the users are using the system in most effective way. If it has not been done than the new system might fail and will not achieve the management objective and project will be a white elephant and the result will be wastage of time and money. What other steps did HPC take to make sure the system was successful? The various approaches are: Phased approach: To implement the new system HPC used phased approach. HPC waited till the company get use to new ERP system and confidence in data quality and collection and processing methods. Benchmarking: HPC emphasized the importance of benchmarking with other companies before designing and implementing the executive facing system What types of system-building methods and tools did HPC use for building its system? SAP Business object Dashboards: is a drag and drop visualisation tool used for performance management, planning reporting query and providing access to self-service access to data from database excel spreadsheets. SAP business Objects web intelligence: it is an ad-hoc query reporting and analysis tool used to create queries. What were the benefits of the new system? How did it change the way Honam ran its business? How successful was this system solution. Benefits: The benefits are timeline decisions, personalised delivery of information, measurable watch-up indicators across all business areas and improved accessibility and readability. Now executives are no longer limited to stale data in an outdated presentation format. The system is very successful and helps to solve the problems occurring at HPC. The system reduces the time required to collect process and track the data so that rapid executive decision making take place. The HPC information system is now ready for global information sharing as the company expands. This system solution was successful for HPC as it gave the company a competitive advantage. You are consulting for the information technology division of a state university to guide and facilitate the design of a new system for handling college applications, which has previously been handled entirely with a paper-based process. They would like to set up a system by which prospective students can apply online. Describe in detail their first steps and any studies they should perform before designing the new information system. The college should perform system analysis, by identifying the primary owners and users, problem of existing system, examining the documents and procedures. Feasibility study to check whether the proposed system is feasible and achievable from financial, technical and organizational standpoint. Should identify several alaternative solutions that organization can pursue and the process then assess the feasibility of each. What are the advantages and disadvantages of prototyping? Describe the steps in prototyping. Give at least two circumstances under which prototyping might be useful. Prototyping gives proper clarity and feel of functionality and suggest changes and modifications to the users. Its disadvantage is that needs to much user involvement and too many changes can disturb the rhythm of development team. It is useful in Waterfall model. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using outsourcing for building information systems. Benefits: Through outsourcing a firm can have skills, resources and assets which client do not have, cheaper than hiring, training and maintain the in-house staff. Through offshore outsourcing the costs has reduced. Disadvantage: Firms hiring outsourcers are underestimating the cost of identifying and evaluating the vendors, transitioning to a new vendor and cost involved in improving the internal software development methods to match those of vendors. Some have said that the best way to reduce system development costs is to use application software packages or fourth-generation tools. Do you agree? Why or why not? The decision to purchase a fourth generation tools depends on various factors like whether the packages are vailable in market, are able to solve 80% of systems functional requirement. Wheteher they are compatibel with current orgnaisations system and cost of purchasing, installing and maintaining should not be more than cost of custome development and maintenance. References Camilo Amracy. 2012. Building information systems. [Online] Available at https://www.scribd.com/doc/105081588/Building-Information-Systems#scribd Honam Petrochemicals Quest for Better Management Reports. Lazarus Payne. IBM Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZITC). [Online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPZrkeHMDJ8 KL Manu. 2014. Honam Petrochemical Quest for Better Management Reports. [Online] Available at https://www.scribd.com/doc/221423102/Honam-Petrochemical-Quest-for-Better-Management-Reports#scribd Koffka Khan. 2012. Tutorial 9. [Online] Available at https://www2.sta.uwi.edu/~anikov/info1400/lectures/09-ITF-tutorial.pdf Maryam Ahmadi. 2015. IBM Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZTIC). [Online] Available at https://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Ibm-Zone-Truated/362690 Sinosteel Strengthens Business Management with Oracle Apps. [Online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5rBGljckjw Summit Electric Lights up with a new ERP system. [Online] Available at www.panayainc.com Williams. 2010. Build, Manage and Globalise projects. IE 332 Computing in Industrial Engineering. Spring 2010. Yuri Brigadir. 2014. Prototype Model: Disadvantage and Advantage. [Online] Available at https://www.ianswer4u.com/2011/11/prototype-model-advantages-and.html#axzz3aC5KBCDd Logistics & Supply Chain Management For Accommodating Demands Questions: 1. The fundamental reasons for success, with a comparison to another successful and an unsuccessful company? 2. How does the company maintain its competitive advantage, here the concept of sustainability may again be of interest? 3. Is the company's formula for success suitable for other companies and is so explain why, if not explain why? 4. what supply chain challenges does the company face when dealing with demand fluctuations and comment on how the supply chain investments support its overall customer service and resources utilisation objectives? 5. what prerequisites are important for the operation of the lean systems that are in place? Answers: Introduction Logistics management is an important functional area that is required to be carried out by businesses with a view to achieve higher level of success and effectiveness in their performance. Logistics management is concerned with the management of flow of materials within the organisation and ensuring that the products are delivered on timely basis to the final consumers. However, its management is highly crucial mainly because of the increasing level of growth and expansion as achieved by businesses in their activities. As a result, the management of their business processes have become highly difficult because of their increasing level of expansion into international markets which requires management of their business activities at much wider level. The customer base of the organisation increases significantly and there has also been rise in the level of the business processes such as warehousing, flow of materials from warehouses to stores or directly to customers etc. Because of su ch increasing level of business activities being carried out at global level, the management has become highly difficult and this has also created difficulties in the process of efficient operation management (Myerson, 2012). This case study analysis is all about John Lewis Partnership whereby it has been indicated that the organisation has achieved significant level of expansion in its performance and this has created difficulties in the process of managing the organisations operations especially the logistics management process in catering to the needs and requirements of different stores of John Lewis. The analysis in this report is therefore focused towards different important aspects related to managing the operations at John Lewis Partnership so as to cater to efficient management of organisations operations. Alternatives for Accommodating Changing Demands and Needs An analysis of the given case on John Lewis indicates that the company has considered a newer system to perform the management of its delivery of products to different John Lewis stores. The analysis indicates that a newer warehousing system in the form of Semi-Automated National Distribution Centre (SANDC) is being considered to handle different items and meet out the requirements of different stores via such warehouse of the company. The analysis also indicates that there has been the consideration of adequate provision in meeting out the needs and requirements of individual customers by delivering the products at their home. This SANDC has been designed with a view to meet out the needs and demands of different John Lewis stores across the country. However, there have been changes in the demand being witnessed within the customers for the items that are being warehoused at SANDC. As for instance, there has been the demand from customers directly to meet out their requirements by s ending the products directly to their home from SANDC (Hirata, 2008). As a result of such changes in the demand pattern, there are fewer full bins that are required and there has been greater proportion of goods that need to be picked at the picking stations. This is mainly because of shift in the demands from final consumers directly as compared to orders from John Lewis stores. In order to accommodate this change, there is a need to perform direct level of consideration certain major strategies by the company. As for instance, there is a need to increase the number of bins that are being utilised presently in order to manage the picking of orders. This would allow for accommodating the order to large number of orders of diverse customers in a positive manner. Apart from this, the number of picking stations should also be increased so that there could be satisfaction of larger demands in future in a positive manner. In addition to this, there is also the need to consider alternative in the form of increasing the number of picker because a single picke r accounts for picking up at the rate of 650 picks and puts. By increasing the number of picker, the increase in the demand from different customers could be efficiently addressed. These major alternatives are essential to be considered in ensuring that the management of customer orders is being performed in an efficient manner. Home Shopping Area within SANDC The case analysis of John Lewis above has indicated that the company is faced with significant level of rise in the demand from customers. There has been rise in the demands in a manner different from that of what has been expected by the organisation, and as a result, the management needs to be highly effective in incorporating any kinds of changes in the demand from customers. The SANDC is designed specifically in order to cater to the needs and requirements for product by the John Lewis stores, but there has been increase in the home shopping activities by consumers which requires direct delivery of products to consumers. In order to cater to the specific needs for home order requirement, it is important that there should be additional consideration that should be made with regard to meeting out the requirements from this specific area. It is essential that that a separate home shopping area that should be introduced so that it has separate bins and the entire management of the de livery process is being carried out in a highly efficient manner. In terms of flexibility at SANDC is concerned, an analysis of the performance of the warehousing system across the company indicates that it has been operated at a large level and conveyor can travel upto 10 Km. this signifies that there has been extensively huge level at which the products are being managed at SANDC and as such, there is a scope for including the home shopping system that has been gearing up with higher demands in the present case of SANDC. The demand patterns as changed can be adjusted efficiently by the company depending on the level at which it is currently operating. There is a need for consideration of a separate section in meeting out the requirements from home shopping department of the company. The bins to be used including the space needed and also the conveyor should be extensively different in meeting out the needs of home shopping and the analysis of the case of SANDC indicates that there has been adequate level of flexibility available in performing the management of home shopping department (Fox, 2009). In performing the changes in the operational system in meeting out the organisational needs for home shopping, there are changes that are required to be faced by SANDC in ensuring that operational changes are carried out efficiently. The implementation issues in this respect in making changes to the operational layout is mainly the selection of a new location within the premise of SANDC for this home shopping requirements, and secondly, there would also be issues in terms of higher level of costs faced in the infrastructure development of the company. This is mainly because there would be significant level of changes required especially in respect to existing infrastructure of the company. This can therefore be regarded as a major issue in the process of performing the implementation of changes and it is therefore regarded as a major implementation issue in the process of addressing additional demand requirements from customers. This operational change is however considered important mainly because the future is likely to witness a significant increase in the requirements of the company. Need for Continuous Improvements Continuous improvement is highly essential from the point of view of achieving highly efficient performance levels within organisation. Businesses should aim at devising strategies aimed at achieving enhanced level of improvements in their performance and in respect to the given case of John Lewis in managing the distribution system, there is a need for achieving continuous level of improvements with respect to its performance. This initiative in the form of SANDC is being undertaken at John Lewis with a view to achieve improvement over its performance levels in the form of efficient meeting out of the requirements of different John Lewis stores across the country (Douglas, 2010). Although the analysis has indicated that there has been significant level of improvements being achieved at John Lewis in the form of including SANDC operation, yet there has been the scope of achieving further level of improvement in it. In terms of efficiency, there can be the application of skilled and efficient technical personnel that could manage the stocking and disbursement of products across SANDC. The application of technology is applied at SANDC in the form of basic technological equipments such as conveyor, bins uplifting machines etc. However, the attainment of higher level of efficiency can be possible by way of considering specific technologies in managing specific organisational information. As for instance, in tracking of inventory, there could be the application of technology in the form of RFID technological systems, as its application would enhance the operational efficiency performance of the organisation (Aartsengel and Kurtoglu, 2013). The improvement in the service levels can be ensured by way of focusing especially towards the operational areas at SANDC. This is mainly in terms of utilising larger number of tote bins, increased human resources and planning for enhancing the number of entry and exit points for the stock. This would not only ensure the meet out of requirements of different customers, but there would be higher level of efficiency that could also become possible in respect to the performance of the entire organisation. This suggests that service levels can be enhanced by way of increasing the number of equipments and skilled people that are currently being utilised in performing the management of SANDC. It is also essential that there should be higher emphasis that should be placed towards achieving sustainability performance levels and this could be achieved at SANDC by making it sure that there is adequate application of environment friendly equipments that should be performed in managing organisat ions operations (Cushman, 1997). The areas that may be worthy of examination are mainly the current functions that are carried out in order to perform the management of organisations operations. Apart from this, the additional consideration of newer operational area aimed at managing the home shopping requirements of customers is also quite crucial from the point of view of achieving higher level of success. Thus, there is a need for achieving continuous level of improvement in this respect in ensuring that better meet out of requirements across different John Lewis areas could be achieved. Fundamental Reasons for Success An analysis on the case study on John Lewis company indicates that there are certain important factors that become the primary factor behind the success of the company as against other companies. As for instance, the analysis indicated that John Lewis has a different nature of ownership which has been a crucial factor that has contributed towards the attainment of higher growth levels. Because of share of each and every employee in the profitability performance of the company, there has been positive level of contribution being achieved from each and every member supporting the performance of the organisation. As a result, it accounts for positively contributing towards the growth of the organisation in a positive manner. Apart from this particular factor, there are certain other reasons that have primarily contributed towards achieving higher level of growth and success of the firm. As for instance, the significant level of presence of the company across the entire UK has also been a competitive factor which allows it in serving large customer groups. The company has also performed the management of its operations especially the distribution system as highly efficient which allowed it in meeting out the needs and requirements of each of its store in an efficient manner. This has therefore contributed in a positive manner towards the enhanced level of performance and ultimately the growth of the company (Larkin, 2008). Maintaining Competitive Advantage Competitive advantage is mainly the strength point of the organisation and it is concerned with the key determining factor leading the entire organisation to higher level of success. The maintenance of competitive advantage is quite important for businesses to succeed and in this respect, the analysis of the case of John Lewis indicates that the company has specific competitive advantage that allows it in remaining a successful company. As for instance, its analysis indicates that the major competitive advantage as available to John Lewis is mainly in terms of its stronger network that it has developed in the market of UK. The stronger presence along with its reputation in the industry has been a contributing factor towards competitive position of the firm in the industry. In addition to this, the focus of John Lewis towards the sustainability factor has also contributed positively towards achieving improved level of performance by the company. These are the important factors that ha ve become the primary competitive factor that has resulted into the attainment of significant level of competitive advantage by the firm in its operations (Nilsson and Rapp, 2005). Suitability of the Companys Formula of Success The given analysis of the case of John Lewis indicates about the performance of the company and has also indicated about the formula of success of the firm. The formula as considered by John Lewis is mainly the performance of significant level of growth of its firm initially and this is supported by high class operational management systems that allows for managing the entire operations in a positive manner. This particular approach has been highly suitable especially in respect to other firms in the retail industry as they could also initially consider the application of such growth strategy of performing the business expansion. This should be followed by the application of specific technologies that are aimed at achieving higher level of excellence over the performance of entire organisation in a positive manner. The important factor in this strategy of achieving growth and success is that it requires considerable level of efforts from all the employees, and management working with in the organisation. The efforts from all of them is essential as evident in the given case of John Lewis and such synergistic efforts are crucial from the point of view of meeting out the objective of achieving higher growth and success levels (Taylor, 2011). Supply Chain Challenges during Demand Fluctuations Supply chain management is crucial in respect to large organisation mainly because they need to perform the delivery of products and services across different departments and business units that are functional. An analysis of the given case of John Lewis in particular indicates that the company has various business units that spans across UK and it is essential that they should be provided with finished products on timely basis. However, in the instances of fluctuations in the demand of the company, it is highly difficult to efficiently meet out their demands because being a retailer, it is difficult to maintain the preservation of stock for longer time period. This would therefore create problems to the supply chain partners in meeting out such fluctuating demand. The management of stock at SANDC would be difficult under demand fluctuations and ultimately, there would be challenges in the form of timely meet out of requirements of various business units of the firm. The investment i n the supply chain would support overall customer services and resource utilisation objectives in the sense that it enables the timely delivery of products to the retailers and ultimately, final consumers would get them on timely basis (Gattorna, 2003). Prerequisites for the Operations of Lean Systems In respect to performing the management of operations of lean systems, there are certain major prerequisites that are crucial. Lean system is concerned with the elimination of waste by way of focusing towards achieving efficiency with respect to all the processes. As a result, there are certain major prerequisites that must be fulfilled in ensuring that lean systems are properly accounted in performing the management of organisations operation. This mainly includes the attainment of efficiency in respect to the employees by utilising skilled employees in the process, and there should be measures and policies that should be devised aimed at achieving operational effectiveness so that the minimisation of wastes in the process can be ensured. Conclusion A critical analysis as carried out above has indicated about the case of John Lewis which suggests that the company has achieved significant level of growth and it has considered the adaptation of a new system known as SANDC with a view to perform the management of operations of the organisation in a positive way. The company has considered the application of this system with a view to meet out the requirement for finished products of different business units of the organisation that spans worldwide. The analysis indicated about the alternatives that are essential to consider from changing demand patterns at the company, and the analysis also indicated that there should be a separate dedicated area for home shopping. It is also identified crucial that there should be continuous improvements that should be achieved in respect to organisations operations. References Aartsengel, A. and Kurtoglu, S. (2013), Handbook on Continuous Improvement Transformation: The Lean Six Sigma Framework and Systematic Methodology for Implementation Springer Science Business Media. Cushman, D.P. (1997), Continuously Improving an Organization's Performance: High-Speed Management, SUNY Press. Douglas, V. (2010), Operational Behaviors and Continuous Improvement, Volney Douglas. Fox, W.M. (2009), The Management Process: An Integrated Functional Approach (PB), IAP. Gattorna, J. (2003), Gower Handbook of Supply Chain Management, Gower Publishing, Ltd. Hirata, T.T. (2008), Customer Satisfaction Planning: Ensuring Product Quality and Safety Within Your MRP/ERP Systems, CRC Press. Larkin, (2008), Ready To Lead?: Prepare To Think And Act Like A Successful Leader, Pearson Education India. Myerson, P. (2012), Lean Supply Chain and Logistics Management, McGraw Hill Professional. Nilsson, F. and Rapp, B. (2005), Understanding Competitive Advantage: The Importance of Strategic Congruence and Integrated Control, Springer Science Business Media. Taylor, C. (2011), The Formula for Success in Network Marketing, Filament Publishing Ltd.