- •What are two inventory classification systems? How do these differ? What is the purpose of such systems? How is each analysis done?
- •What is the 80-20 rule? How is it stated? What causes this to occur when looking at products?
- •What are the various costs associated with inventory? Which are largest? How are they expressed?
- •Ordering Cost
- •Carrying Cost (Holding costs) – the largest!
- •Inventory Storage Cost
- •Cost of Capital
- •4. What are reasons for holding physical supply inventory? What are reasons for holding physical distribution inventory?
- •Market penetration
- •Transportation and Physical Barriers
- •Production lead times
- •Avoid Certain Costs
- •6. What is "just-in-time" inventory management? What are the characteristics? When does it work best? How does it compare to the American system? Problems?
- •7. What are the functional types of inventory we find in a logistical system?
- •8. Trade-off Analysis: Service-Level vs. Cost
- •What is the objective of inventory management and control?
- •Inventory Management provides:
- •Meet Demand
- •Control Costs
- •Identify Opportunities
- •4 Categories of an Inventory Management Tool
- •Logistics Interfaces with Operations
- •Interface activities:
- •Explain the value-added role of logistics
- •Costs Are Significant
- •Logistics Customer Service Expectations Are Increasing
- •Supply and Distribution Lines Are Lengthening with Greater Complexity
- •Logistics/sc Is Important to Strategy
- •Logistics/sc Adds Significant Customer Value
- •12. What are the six major steps that are recommended for a logistics network design process?
- •13. Describe the four main scenarios which occur in the event of a stockout?
- •14. Explain the productivity objective to be achieved through warehouse layout and design?
- •Describe the role of transportation in logistics?
- •Creating Economic Utility
- •Market Area Decision
- •Purchasing Decisions
- •Location Decisions
- •Pricing Decisions
- •Transportation's Place in the Economy
- •Geographic specialization
- •Large-Scale Production
- •Describe some of the dimensions upon which supply chain relationships may differ?
- •17. What are the possible reasons for a company to outsource its logistics? What does this trend mean for today’s businesses?
- •18. What is the role and functions of supply chain intermediaries?
- •20. What are the reasons for logistics providers to improve and expand their businesses? In what way logistics providers of different levels differ?
- •21. How to identify what level of customer service should be offered? (consider tradeoffs)
20. What are the reasons for logistics providers to improve and expand their businesses? In what way logistics providers of different levels differ?
The most important asset of any logistics provider is it’s network. The bigger the network – the less costs occur. A logistics providers’ network is it’s partners (transportation, warehousing companies, customs brokers etc) it’s clients. The more clients the providers has the more chances he has for consolidating cargo for transportation. This dramatically decreases transportation costs per item and thus the provider can offer lower price. The same situation with partners – if the provider has a lot of partners in other regions it will decrease the cost and time of transportation an item from A to B (because the provider already has contracts with forwarders in other regions, prices are set and forwarders can ask lower prices in case of big volumes).
Taking into account everything that was said above we can conclude that it’s natural for a logistics provider to aim to expand to other regions and countries. This way the provider offers better services at lower prices.
The differences between logistics providers:
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The services they provide (only transportation or warehousing – 2PL providers; multiple services – 3PL; coordinating the supply chain – 4 PL)
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Their assets (2PL and 3PL have to own warehouses, transport etc; 4PL are non-asset businesses, they own only knowledge and technologies)
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The scale (2PL are small local firms, 3PL and 4PL can expand to doing international business)
21. How to identify what level of customer service should be offered? (consider tradeoffs)
Logistics customer service is necessarily a part of a firm's overall service offering. There are various definitions of it and quotations about it.
1. Customer service, when utilized effectively, is a prime variable that can have a significant impact on creating demand and retaining customer loyalty.
2. Customer service refers specifically to the chain of sales-satisfying activities which usually begins with order entry and ends with delivery of product to customers, in some cases continuing on as equipment service or maintenance or other technical support.
3. Logistics customer service for many firms is the speed and dependability with which items ordered (by customers) can be made available.
4. More recently, customer service has been referred to in terms of a. fulfillment process which has been described as the entire process of filling the customer's order. This process includes the receipt of the order (either manual or electronic), managing the payment, picking and packing the goods, shipping the package, delivering the package, providing customer service for the end user and handling the possible return of the goods.
Finding a comprehensive measure to effectively assess logistics performance is quite difficult. Total order-cycle time and its variability are probably the best single measures of logistics since they embody so many of the variables that are considered important to customers.
. Some common performance measures include the following:
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Order entry.
-minimum, maximum, and average time for order handling
2. Order documentation accuracy.
-percent of order documents with errors
3. Transportation.
-percent of deliveries on time
- percent of orders delivered by customer request date
- damage and loss claims as a percent of freight costs
4. Inventory and product availability.
- stockout percentage
- percent of orders filled complete
- order fill rate and weighted average fill rate
- average percent of items on backorder
- item fill rate
5. Product damage.
- number of returns to total orders
- value of returns to total sales
6. Production/warehousing processing time
- minimum, maximum, and average time to process orders
Many other measures can be used and they should be tailored to the design of the particular logistics system operated by a company.
1 http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/management/ti/media/docs/scIntermediariesfinalwithcover(1).pdf начиная со стр 5 и далее