Question

Case Study: “Supply chain whirl”
While the 2001 global overhaul of Whirlpool's supply chain systems remains a work in progress today, managers say its success to date is encouraging the remaining systems work.
The supply chain at Whirlpool in 2000 was broken. Indeed, a manager there at the time quipped that among the four major appliance makers in the U.S., Whirlpool ranked fifth in delivery performance.
"We had too much inventory, too little inventory, wrong inventory, right inventory/wrong place, any combination of those things," says J.B. Hoyt, who was then supply chain project director. He says a sales vice president approached him one day and said he'd accept even worse performance from supply systems if they would just be consistent rather than wildly bouncing back and forth between good and poor production and shipping plans.
So in 2001, Whirlpool embarked on a multiproject global overhaul of its supply chain systems. The meta project remains a work in progress today, with a number of systems yet to be rolled out and some major technical issues to be resolved. But managers at Whirlpool say its success to date -- including huge improvements in customer service and reduced supply chain costs -- is providing the psychological and financial impetus to drive the remaining systems work.
Source: Anthes, G.H. (2015)

1. In order to understand Whirlpool’s supply chain information needs, discuss the purpose, characteristics and key performance dimensions for information flows for the following supply chain activities:
 Strategic decision making
 Tactical planning
 Routine decision making
 Execution and transaction processing (20)

2. Discuss, using examples, the difference between CRM and SRM applications. (5)

Answer 1

whirlpool supply chain information needs can be accessed as -

Strategic decision making -

Purpose - The main decision involves location planning, the capacity decision for Whirpool also these should be long term planning which should help in the growth of the company.

Characteristics - The focus of the company should be on a new market and new building, a warehouse of the company, needs can change thus it is highly flexible.

Key performance dimension- Flexibility in taking these decisions so that changes can be made in the supply chain information system,

Tactical planning

Purpose - it is to develop a plan which will help to manage the supply chain in key areas where the company is lagging.

Characteristic- this will imply whirlpool should work on tactical decisions like workforce, warehousing decision, inventory management.

Key performance dimensions - its information handling flexibility for the formation of the plan

Routine decision making -

Purpose - this will establish a system of rule-based decision-making in the whirlpool SCM system.

Characteristics - the decision should be time-bound with limited user discretion

Key performance dimensions.- accuracy of governing the task, a timeline of taking edition of tasks involved, proper discretionary decision handling of inventory, etc.

Execution and transaction processing -

Purpose- it involves retrieving and accessing data and, monitoring, taking care of monetary flows. executing and controlling the physical system.

Characteristic- it can be of very short time frames handling large amounts of volumes. there are standard user practices with no intervention.

Key performance dimensions.- it should be accurately governed by a certain timeline.

2) CRM deals with the organization management of the information from the customer which involves data from the sales, invoices, grievances of the customer, etc so CRM deals with all the information at the customer level which helps maintain contact with the customer. eg whirlpool through CRM manages its customer data which involves its product sales to the particular customer it contains the detail of all the information of customers like invoice details, addresses, etc if and the issue occurs manager can look into the matter and deal with the situation easily.

SRM deals with supply chain relations with the company and those of suppliers. This involves interaction between a supplier who delivers raw goods to the company and also distributer who supply goods to the market. eg whirlpool make the washing machine, fridge for this they need raw material to manage a proper supply it will use SRM to get things done more efficiently. so that its production process does not get disrupted.