Procurement and implementation of a supply chain management system

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: With the globalisation and internationalisation of markets and businesses, organisations havehad to find new ways to not only view and run their own organisations to keep their existingmarkets but also to enable them to capture new markets.In the past the way to gain competitive advantage in any industry was to streamline reengineerand revolutionise your organisation's internal operations, procedures and structures.This gave rise to initiatives such as Total Quality Management (TQM), MaterialsRequirement Planning (MRP), Just in Time (JIT) and numerous Business Process Reengineering(BPR) projects. However, it has become increasingly more difficult to squeezesavings out of an operation. You cannot downsize forever and cannot gain new markets bygrowing continuously smaller. Activities and processes have some inherent inefficiencies builtinto them. These will remain no matter how the procedures improve e.g. set-up time of steelpress will never be zero etc.The key in further improvement lies in the co-ordination and co-operation betweenorganisations that interact with each other and provide the organisation with value adding ornecessary services or products. This is currently known as supply chain management. Itinvolves a global and holistic view of the market and the realisation that other organisationsup and downstream from you do not compete with you but complement each other to providethe final product - an item sold to the consumer in the right quantity, quality, at the rightprice and right place, not just the item that your organisation has produced and passed on tothe next organisation in the supply chain.Much of this thinking has existed for several decades but has not materialised into bestpractice due to a lack of technology to support and complement it. However, in the last fiveyears technology has developed and kept pace with these principles and in fact has become one of the major driving factors that drive supply chain strategies, optimisation initiativesand development of organisational cultures.Spoor net has developed visions and strategies to take part and to become a leader in supplychain solutions in South Africa. It has actively participated in this area for a number ofyears.The author was part of a team that realised the need and developed the ideas of such adecision support tool for supply chain management at Spoornet. This software tool wasintended to assist the Channel Manager in decision making in his/her supply chain. It wouldadd value to the decision making process revolutionising it from a manual inaccurate task to amore automated, technical, mathematical and efficient process. This would enable theChannel Managers to concentrate on communication and the relationships with partnerorganisations and customers. This adds considerably more business value to Spoornet.This thesis discusses the initial development of the ideas and principles of decision supportfor the supply chain through to the procurement process of such technology, as well as thefirst pilot project and finally the complex issues that have to be considered and dealt withwhen these types of solutions are to be implemented and used successfully.The author was directly responsible for the development of the ideas in this thesis as well asthose deployed during numerous Spoornet supply chain projects. Shortly after thisdevelopment, he received a position in the Centre for Logistics Excellence (CLE) at Spoornet.The CLE was responsible for the development of logistic and supply chain strategies andcompetencies in Spoornet.Together with Dirk du Toit, he was responsible. for the procurement of the supply chainmanagement tool. Soon after the procurement of the tool, Mr. Du Toit left the organisationand the responsibility for the further development and the pilot project was passed onto theauthor. This involved further negotiations with the supplier, clients as well as the development of future competencies and strategies by utilising the supply chain managementtoo.The first part of the document outlines the project during which the ideas of supply chainmanagement technology and software first came to the fore. This includes the projectbackground, the inefficiencies of the current process and very high level specifications thatwould be required of the TO-BE software. These specifications are in terms of how thesoftware could assist Channel Managers.This is followed by analysis (literature survey) of techniques and methods that could bepotentially capable of satisfying the high level specifications. From the analysis, it wasdecided that the use of deterministic programming would be the most suitable approach forthis type of decision making. (Especially considering current advances in softwaretechnology).More detailed specifications are then outlined by a set of process models and descriptions. Anumber of software tools are analysed for their suitability and capability to deliver thespecifications.The CAPS toolkit of supply chain applications was the most suitable for these particularneeds and requirements. This tool was chosen and purchased.The rest of the document details the customisation and development of CAPS into the toolthat would be used in· projects. This includes data requirements, data collection, humancompetencies required to use the tool and a quick overview of how the tool would be used.An overview of the pilot project that was to be carried out is also provided. This projectwould be used to illustrate the benefits that could be gained from supply chain optimisationusing this type of tool. Unfortunately, the author left the organisation that had purchased the tool so the pilotproject was never finished. However, a number of lessons were learnt as to the factors thatneed to be taken into account when implementing and utilising such a tool. There are factorssuch as organisational structure, organisations' role in the supply chain as well as supply chainpricing.The final sections of this document outline the current thinking in terms of Supply ChainManagement and related issues that are currently in the process of being addressedinternationally by many logistically advanced and progressive corporations.The initial aims of the initiatives discussed in this document was to procure and implement asupply chain management system. The procurement of the tool waS successfully accomplishedand Spoornet currently has licences for the CAPS toolkit. It is capable of designing andplanning complex supply chains together with it clients/partners.The secondary aim discussed in this document was the implementation of the tool in terms ofa pilot project. This pilot project was to illustrate the benefits and the saving that can begained from the use of the CAPS tool in a realistic supply chain situation. This was not fullyaccomplished. The project team working on the pilot project lost several of its key members,including the author, and was not able to complete the pilot project with the remainingmembers.The parts that were accomplished were the preparatory stages of the project such as datacollection and development of cost models to be used in CAPS.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University