You are on page 1of 3

CH-1 ACTIVITIES

What is Value Chain? Value Chain Definition, its Management and Analysis | AIMS
Lecture

According to the video a value chain is defined as “sting of collaborating players, who work
to satisfy market demands for specific products or services.” The main objective is to
increase the value of a product or service integrating some activities of the supply chain into
the product service lifecycle. These activities are a determination of customer needs,
production, distribution, marketing, and sales services.

The value stream involves “the sequence of activities required to design, produce and
deliver a good or service to the market.” For goods, it can be resumed in raw material
supplier, manufacturing and distribution network, but for services, it consists of suppliers,
technology, service producer and distribution channel. These activities are controlled by a
single business or a network of business. Taking into account the previous definition, value
stream mapping implicates two-step process. First, to draw a value stream map to show the
flow of the current chain with the objective of improving it and have the most effective flow
of the product or service.

Porte’s value chain is “focused on systems and how inputs are changed into the outputs.”
This concept describes a sequence of activities that exist into all business and it divides into
two types of activities. The first one is primary activities that encompass physical creation,
sales, maintenance and support of a product or service. They consist of inbound logistics,
operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services. Each one can be defined
as shown below:

Inbound logistics are the processes related to receiving, storing and distributing inputs
operations.
– Operations are the activities that change inputs into outputs. Here operational
systems create value.
– Outbound logistics are the activities that deliver your product or service to your
customer.
– Marketing and sales are the processes used to persuade clients to purchase from
you instead of your competitors.
– Service is related to all sales service.

Support services are the second type of activities. Its main function is to support, as its name
indicates, the primary activities. Support activities are:

– Procurement or purchasing: how an organization gets resources? Such as finding


vendors, best prices, etc.
– Human resources management: how well a company recruits, trains, motivates and
rewards its workers?
– Technological development: what an organization does to manage and process
information?
– Infrastructure: company’s support systems, and the functions that allow it to maintain
daily operations (Ex: accounting, legal, administrative, and general management).
A New Introduction to Supply Chains and Supply Chain Management: Definitions
and Theories Perspective

This paper is a review of the definitions and theories of Supply Chains (SC) and Supply
Chain Management (SCM). The author presents important jargons and theoretical approach
that is used in the academic dissertation. He concludes, for SC that its mean roll is to add
value to a product by transporting it from one location to another, throughout the good can
be changed through processing. And for SCM that is aimed at examining and managing
Supply Chain networks, the foundation for this concept is the opportunity for cost savings
and better customer service. Also, the criteria to evaluate the efficiency of SC are speed,
dependability/ reliability, cost, and consumer satisfaction. But the key is on the
understanding of principal functions as well as the role played by each function in the Supply
Chain’s overall efficiency.

Score 4: It is a theoretical research where the conclusion of each concept is not clearly
defined. They try to propose a new definition for SC and SCM based on the current
definitions. It is a paper interesting for researchers or students that need a brief resume
about the different definitions of SC and SCM, and need to know about the author that
proposed it.

Participation of suppliers in greening supply chains: An empirical analysis of


German automotive suppliers

This paper is about bases that explain supplier participation in green initiatives, by studying
four variables, customer requirements, supplier readiness, relational norms and customer
investment as possible drivers. To develop the research, they applied surveys to 54 German
automotive suppliers. Partial least squares were implemented as a methodology to test the
hypothesis. They found that the relationship between customer requirements with respect
to green manufacturing and supplier participation in green initiatives is positive (First
hypothesis). Also, a significative relationship between supplier readiness and supplier
willingness to participate in GSCM (Green Supply Chain Management) initiatives (Second
hypothesis). And a cooperative relationship has a positive influence on customer
investments in green initiatives (Fourth hypothesis). On the other hand, the relationship style
and customer investment does not have a positive influence on supplier participation (Third
and fifth hypothesis).
According to these finding, the proposal is that suppliers should be able to adapt their
production processes to sustainable methods and increase green manufacturing and
products due to, everyday consumers are more inclined towards eco-friendly products.

Score: 6. The paper presents the topic and variables clearly, but the size of the sample it is
not enough to formulate a good conclusion about supplier´s participation on GSCM even if
they only take in count German automotive suppliers. Also, the topic of green manufacturing
is extensive respect the variables, so from our perspective, they limited a lot them. In
general, it is a paper to have some ideas about the GSCM.

Learning and practicing supply chain management strategies from a business


simulation game: a comprehensive supply chain simulation
This paper explains the development of an Internet-based supply chain simulates on a game
(ISCS) redesigning or extended from the Beer Game. So, the ISCS allows to test a
comprehensive set of supply chain management strategies, and these strategies can be
evaluated and appraised based on the built-in Management Information System (MIS). Due
to, the ISCS has been running at postgraduate level in the University of Greenwich, the
researchers decided to prove that it is an efficient and effective teaching and assessment
tool to increase Supply Chain (SC) awareness, facilitate understanding of various SC
strategies and challenges, foster collaboration between partners, and improve problem
solving skills.

The results indicate that observation let them identify the obstacles and problems engaging
in the simulation, and the actions proposed to improve overall SC performance has been
taken by the students. The MIS reports show that improved SC performance has been
achieved both from a financial aspect and a customer service level perspective.

Score: 3. The paper describes what they did in a coherent way and summarized. It was not
possible to identify the number of students used in the reports. It is clearly understood that
the theme is a game to learn about the Supply Chain Management and its affectivity in that
process. The descriptions are very general, and it will always be necessary to contact the
authors, as they indicate, to obtain detailed information about some specific part of the
research carried out. From our point of view, this publication has a more pedagogical
approach than engineering.

You might also like