Global Warming, Resource Scarcity, And High Energy Costs

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

Lean is a systematic approach designed to identify and eliminate waste of time, materials and effort through continuous improvement to enhance value to the customer by directing the flow of the product at the customers pull.

Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, "Lean," is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes

Furthermore, the company’s operating model, and the strategy of manufacturing close to the markets, ensures a constant focus on optimisation and improvement, while securing end to end col¬laboration to deliver against customer

Business generally is frosted with various challenges, and that facing supply chain seems not to have gained adequate attention. Challenges could force early exit on firms’, thus imposing loses on investments. Therefore to ensure effective and efficient minimization of loses, improve profit, and operate competitively, it then becomes imperative to critically research on the challenges and proffer solutions that would minimize the impact on the chain.

The supply chain has evolved over the years. With new businesses that are on the rise in the competitive world it is important to stay on top. Different merchants create better deals that cause relationships between the suppliers and their customers to the end. I wanted to explore those relationships and research the history of the “supply chain”. I wanted to know how things were ran and how they are able to sustain business when the economy changes.

Lean is a system that relies heavily on all aspects of the system running flawlessly and efficiently. To achieve this an operation must place extreme emphasis on creating a culture of lean company wide. A popular misconception is that lean is suited only for manufacturing. Not true. Lean applies in every business and every process. It is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, but a way of thinking and acting for an entire organization. Many organizations choose not to use the word lean, but to label what they do

In the fierce competitive environment where customers expect the products they purchased are unique and customized, and the price should be as low as mass-produced items (Radder & Louw 1999). Therefore, more companies realize that a profound change in production procedures and flexibility of structures are needed to meet the challenges. While Mass customization (MC) has provided an opportunity to cope with varied customer needs, such as Dell computer, Daimler smart car, Swatch, IBM, Proctor and Gamble and Hewlett-Packard, leading a successful business practices by accommodating specific customer requirements (Selladurai 2004). Originally, the notion of MC was coined by Stan Davis (1987) in his book “Future Shock”, which defines MC as a fundamental paradox allowing firms to produce as various goods as possible based on volatile customer needs, but in a cost-effective way.

The aim is to develop an effective and efficient system of supply chain to enhance service delivery. This section will discuss the research design developed to explore the aim of this study. Firstly, a justification for the research design and a description of the research setting will be provided. Next, the data collection method including measures and the research instruments employed will be discussed. Finally the procedure employed for the analysis of data collected using the various research instruments will be provided.

Lean principles or policies reflect key management strategies which an organization might decide to adopt in order to effect dramatic transformation to crucial metrics within the structure. Implementation of the lean concepts should occur in the presence of enhancement of the velocity, minimization of the wasteful practices, and balancing of the flow process. Application of lean in the improvement of the Candix's condition should consider meeting the needs of the consumers, increment in

The manufacturing implications are price, design, and also meet the customer requirement of customization of product. One of the top priorities at HonorSteel is delivery of finished product on time i.e. from receive an order from customer to delivery. Every 3 months a new product is released with new design feature and improved material properties to survive in this competitive market.

Lean Thinking is an improvement approach to improve flow and eliminate waste that was first introduced in 1987. At the beginning, Lean describes production methods and product development, when compare to traditional mass production processes, which produce more with higher quality and in a short time. The Lean’s goal is to develop a way to specify value, line up value to create value in the best sequences, conduct these activities without interruption and perform them more effectively (Womack and Jones 2013).

It aims to identify areas of inefficiency and generate ways of cost saving. Post World War II in the 1950’s in Japan, Toyota was able to use Lean as an improvement approach to improve flow and eliminate waste. It occurred that a series of simple innovations might make it more possible to provide both continuity in process flow and a wide variety in product offerings.

The concept of environmental security although introduced in 1960’s (in the framework of International Relations), became mainstream in 1990’s after the end of cold war which ushered in an era of intellectual instability in the field of security studies introducing a variety of new agendas within the security discourse, including the environment, economy, and, more recently, terrorism (Michel and Pandya 2009).. Alexander Bell in his book Peak waters describes three broad types of environmental concerns which are; global warming, environmental degradation, and resource scarcity. For the purpose of this review, the focus will be on resource scarcity. There are two types of resource scarcity one that is Malthusian in nature and the second is

The lean approach refers to a management philosophy in which the company is constantly pushing towards the ideal system. This is done by attempting to reduce or eliminate to the deviations from the system and adapt to any remaining deviations in place. In short, implementing lean production aims to reach the optimal level of efficiency.