Question

What are the different types of projects and organization structures used in supply chain environments?

Also, how do you go about calculating the critical path and the duration of a project?

Answer 1

project and organnizational structure used in supply chain environment- a project and organizational structure is a system that outlines how certain activities are directed to achieve the organizational goal. it defines the hierarchy within an organization, it identifies each job , it's function and where it reports to within the organization, then a structure is developed to establish how the organization operates to execute it's task. where as supply chain is the management of the flow of goods and services, it also involves the movement and storage of raw material, work in progress and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption. supply chain includes the components and services that a company needs to manufacture and distributes it's products to final consumers.

in a basic supply chain organizational structure the lead company forms a series of relationship with companies that buy and sell supplies from each other. this helps in timely avaiblity of required materials , at right time and right price in the organization. in order to improve the efficiency of suply chain orgainzational structure the members can agree to increase collaboration . it doesn't change the existing organizational structure but it increases the supply chain efficiency by making it more formal.some time an organizational structure based on long term partnership to stablize the supply arrangements are also made. this helps to ensure continuity of supply for lead company. companies can also opt for tiered structure. where memberes are grouped in different tier and the supplier of top tier is in close contact with the lead company.

calculation of critical path and duration of project- each task or activity takes sometime for it's completion, which depends upon the nature of the activity. so before starting any project we prepare network diagram which helps us in knowing the duration of each activity as well as the expected completion time of the project. critical path of the network gives the shortst timein which the whole project can be completed. it is the chain of activities with longest time duration. they are critical in the sense that delay in them results in delay of completion of the project.

steps in calculation of critical path-

1. calculate time schedule for each activity- it includes the time determination by which an activity must start and time before which it must complete. time schedule activity includes the calculation to earliest start( time at which an activity can begin at it earliest), earliest finist ( time at which the activity will finish , which is determined by adding duration of activity with earliest start time), similarly late start and late finish are also calculated.

2. calculate the time schedule for completion of entire project- it envolves the calculation project completion time.

3. identify critical activities and find critical path- critical activities are the onnes which must be started and completed on schedule or else the project may get delayed. the path containing these activities is the critical path and is the longest path in terms of duration.