Question

make this about a skincare business

Perform internal and external research to create an actual or hypothetical project proposal recommendation for your company. This can be a new supply chain initiative or an enhancement to an existing program.

The intent is for you to take from your experience and observation and make a meaningful/significant recommendation on how some aspect of the company's logistics operations could be improved. This portion of the assignment is to challenge you to step back from the daily rigors of performing the tasks and to now be an agent of change. In the "real world" you should be able to recognize and suggest process improvements. This is what you're asked to do for this project.

Answer 1

Ans

Our skin care business in US has many products and raw materials imported from China. In the past this arrangement has worked well however the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the underlying risk of having manufacturing base or critical component base in one country e.g. China.

Due to the pandemic situation in China there was complete lockdown in many parts of China which has led to supply disruptions from China. Even after the easing of lockdown the supply channels across the world e.g.. ports and airports are still to restart and so in spite of demand the company is not able to supply the product to all the nations due to supply channel disruptions . Due to the ongoing trade war between US and China the import of Chinese Components and products into US is likely to get affected and since this essential product has big market in US so that is also a major concern.

1. Based on the principle of making supply chains resilient and agile the company should focus on developing alternative production centers besides the existing ones in Asia so as to mitigate the risk of shortages due to either Covid or trade barriers. These production centers should be based on the demand patterns across the globe so that the demand of key markets can be served even if any of these production centers gets affected for any reason mentioned above.

2. The manufacturing of products  should be redesigned so that it can be produced with locally made Components in case of an emergency situation where the production centers based in other continents gets affected. This is based on the strategy of risk management and self dependence.

3. Alternative sourcing of parts and products from different geographies keeping the demand from key markets in place so that supply disruption in one location allows sourcing from alternative source .

4. We need to invest in our ability to source locally all the major components in the event of adverse international trade situation like duties to continue to serve the markets

5.The supply relationships should be such that the order sizes can be flexible to increase or decrease based on the external environment. The pricing should be long term so that the period of turmoil does not lead to unreasonable escalation of  prices.