Improvement on service part supply chain with centralized management and global optimization

Abstract

This project was performed under the supervision of the global supply chain department of InFocus Corp. The company is having high service costs in the Asia Pacific region and desperate to lower the cost in the reverse supply chain and to improve the service level to its customers. In this thesis report, InFocus' current reverse supply chain networks in different business regions were reviewed and detailed analysis was performed for the Asia Pacific region. The results of the analysis showed that the service part supply chain in the Asia Pacific was inefficient and costly due to redundant echelon, insufficient information sharing and lack of centralized management. A shorter and more centralized supply chain was proposed. A comparison was made and various key performance indicators were used to judge the effectiveness of the improvements. The analysis showed that the proposed supply chain has lower costs, lesser safety stock, and higher service levels. Transportation was also shown to be more flexible and cost effective through the proposed replenishment policies. Strategic 3PL partnership and vendor managed inventory (VMI) were also discussed in the later part of the report. Future work can be devoted in these areas to explore the potential of further improvement in the reverse supply chain.