Reference no: EM132202387
ABC Company is a sodium methylate producer with annual revenues of $40 million. They sell their products only to customer in the United States. The issue is that on average only 62% of their shipments were sourced from the nearest plant location to customers in the United States (see boxplot chart below in exhibit A and control chart in exhibit B below). This type of shipment is referred to as an illogical shipment. As a result, the company incurred an additional $1 million in variable finished product distribution expenses.
The company has five manufacturing plants located in the following cities: Houston, TX, Sacramento, CA, Charlotte, NC, Minneapolis, MN, and Philadelphia, PA. There are four Sales Representatives responsible for customers based on the following regions: North, South, East, and West. There is a central Customer Service organization located in Wilmington, Delaware where the company is headquartered.
The Logistics Specialist has collected data identifying root causes (see pareto chart below in exhibit C) and plans to integrate an optimization model into his existing supply chain planning process. The firm’s logistics objectives are to improve supply chain effectiveness, reduce variable FPDE and increase percentage of logical shipments to 90%. They believe these goals are achievable and realistic.
The Logistics Specialist has documented the “as-is” swim lane process map for order fulfillment performed by the Customer Service Representative (see attached file exhibit D). The Supply Chain Manager will be the sponsor for this Business Process Analysis initiative. The Supply Chain Manager has assigned you as the Process Analyst to assist the Logistics Specialist to improve the order fulfillment process and accomplish their objectives. As the Process Analyst, you will be responsible for answering the following questions:
Who should be a member of your project team?
What should be the role of each member (i.e. Process Owner, SME, etc.)?
What gaps or disconnects exist with the “as-is” process?
What methods or techniques would you use to design the “to-be” process?
Give 3 metrics that should be in place to measure process performance?
What actions must be in place to sustain the gains from this effort?
Finally, your key deliverable will be to design the “to-be” order fulfillment swim lane process map using Microsoft Visio, Excel, or Powerpoint.