This individual report should address the following:
1. Research an organisation, map and describe their global supply chain, both upstream and downstream.

2. Identify and critically evaluate the key relationships in the supply chain, how the relationships are managed, and the consequential impacts on performance.

3. Identify and critically evaluate the current supply chain management strategies and practices of your chosen organisation and the impact on the performance of the organisation.

Students are required to use a range of theoretical materials, industry/sector/markets and company information to critically evaluate the supply chain management practices of the organisation.

4. Identify and justify a number of supply chain management practices that would enable the organisation to improve its performance.

writer are required to identify a number of theoretical and industry supply chain management and improvement practices that would enable the chosenorganisation to elevate its performance. The practices (or strategies) identified should overall address the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental. A minimum of 5 practices or strategies are required. This question is basically about finding additional practices from literature which the chosen organisation is not currently using. In essence, the practices identified should be different from the practices identified in question 3.

5. Applying theoretical methods, select the most appropriate set of supply chain management practices and demonstrate why they are the most appropriate to enable the organisation to improve its overall performance.

As companies have limited resource for implementation of practices, usually they would prioritise or select the most relevant set of practices. Therefore, writer are required to identify some models from literature for comparative analysis of the practices and critically evaluate the recommended practices. Demonstrate why the chosen practices are the most appropriate for the organisation or why the organisation shouldprioritise the practices. This question is basically about comparing all the practices identified in question 4, and prioritising some of them.

Assignment Criteria:

Tasks:
• Demonstration of analytical skills of working with data and problem-solving;
• Evidence of critical approach in your writing;
• Evidence of skilful and critical application of the theoretical models/concepts to address the assessment task.
• Use of a wide range of credible academic and professional sources to develop arguments;
• Evidence of wider reading;
• Use of relevant and up-to-date information on the chosen company;

Format:
• Maximum word limit of 4,000 words and minimum of 3,600 words, excluding title page, executive summary, table of content, references and appendixes. If you are in breach of the word count requirements – your grade will be affected.
• Written in professional management report format;
• The report should be appropriately referenced and cited using Harvard Referencing System;
• You are required to produce an Executive summary as part of your report – it will not count towards the word count;
• The report should be written in third person;
• Clearly structured with headings and subheadings;
• Word processed using 1.5 line spacing. Font 12 Arial or Times New Roman.

Below is a Sample Paper. You Can Order a Custom Essay Written From Scratch From Our Website. CLICK HERE TO ORDER.

Introduction

Today’s
business environment is characterized by
stiff competition, which is a first
cataclysm that affects all dimensions of how the supply chain networked
organizations work. Further, the business environment is dynamic and changing fast, and therefore businesses must find a way
to adapt to these new changes. It has to be aware of how the supply chain
networks work and how they can be made better for a business to remain
competitive. The supply chain in the
contemporary business is the vital
competing points, alongside essential other
company competencies, and the success of the Supply chain is determined by the
end customer’s experience with the organization’s product or service (Christopher & Towill, 2001, p. 235). It
has been argued that determining the
performance of the supply chain can help in better understanding it; therefore,
becoming easier to improve the network. Thus, it is crucial to focus on the performance
of the supply chain and evaluating the system
in which the enterprise is a part. Qatar Airlines owes its success to the strong supply chain it has established over the years since
its founding in 1993, and it has grown to be one of the top airlines
around the world, taking after Singapore Airlines and Emirates. This report
examines the current supply chain and logistics operations and their impact on
performance. It further gives the recommendations for making the making the
supply chain better to make the organization more competitive.

Supply Chain
Management and Performance

The supply chain consists all activities related to
the flow and transformation of goods from their raw state until the end user receives
them (Chen, et al., 2004, p. 510). It is an integral part of the business, and it
comprises getting the essential production resources, production and assembling
products, warehousing, order receipt and tracking, dispatching through
different media and finally getting it to the final consumer (Voss, 2002, p. 70). The essential phases that consist supply chain are physical
components flown, knowledge flow, and financial exchanges. It also has members
both located upstream and downstream (Handfield
& Nichols, 2002, p. 298). Nonetheless, over time the perspective of
supply chain management has changed by shifting the focus from internal to
external integrated supply chain system. The origin and evolution of the supply
chain management according to Stadtler (2015, p. 5)have been described in four
phases. The first stage begins with the
integration of the aspects of the
internal logistics. The second step stresses on the horizontal view of the
operation essential in the primary activity of procurement up to the production
of the final product or delivery of service to the end customer. It also deals
with forging integration between the phases to enable an integrated whole and a
chance to minimize the expenses and delays as well as improving the customer activity.
The third is concerned with the coordination of activities between
organizations, for instance, tier 1 and tier 2 vendors, and phases in the supply chain. The final stage in the
synchronization the management and implementation of operations across the
supply chain (Akdogan & Demirtas, 2014, p.
1021).

There are
manifold advantages of setting up an effective supply chain management, such as
minimized costs, increased market availability and selling, and strong client linkages (Ferguson, 2000, p. 64). It is still a
contentious issue if the organizations achieve the full benefits of the supply
chain. A global research on the contemporary manufacturing activities showed
modest uptake and perceived efficiency of supply chain and logistics (Clegg, et al., 2002, p. 187). Therefore,
these realizations depict a very crucial element of logistics performance
determination; the kind of metrics that the company uses to determine the efficiency of their supply chain and the
possible challenges in determining the supply chain efficiency.

The early 1980s saw the birth of the
supply chain concept in the manufacturing sector. It was an advancement of an
idea such as total quality control and just in time. Supply chain management is
viewed as an example of evolutionary and integrated development, which is
usually described as a result of internal operations aimed at making the
overall effectiveness better (Gunasekaran, et
al., 2006, p. 37). The aim is not only focusing on the increasing the internal organizational efficiency, but it now
broadened to minimizing waste and value addition across the entire chain of
supply. There are two sources of influence as to why organizations adopt the
SCM: external factors and the possible benefits from strategically aligning to
the SCM (Basu, 2001, p. 10).

External forces
include factors such as technological developments, and heightened consumer
demand and value in the international environment, preserving the minimal costs
while meeting these different requirements, and healthy
competition using networks among the upstream organizations (Basu, 2001, p. 10). Others are increased competitiveness intensity,
tighter network relationships, continuous
merger operations, and the requirement for improved information flow. These
factors have started changing the focus of individual companies competing for
market dominance and strength to supply chains competing against each other in
different organizations. The second primary driving force to SCM involves the
potential benefits of integrating the supply chain. These comprise
differentiated products and services, faster research and growth stages,
superior service value, competitive pricing, reduced order processing time,
tailored customer feedback, improved delivery operations, better asset
management, and dominating the entire supply chain (Basu, 2001, p. 10).

There is always
a need of having the right performance determinants in the logistics
management. For instance, several studies describe the benefits of measuring
the performance of the integrated supply chain. Chan
& Qi (2003, p. 179) highlighted six primary activities such as
supplier, inbound supply chain, production, outbound supply chain, promotion and
selling, and end customers. They also stressed
the current input, output, and the merged determinants for each of the
processes. Again, supporters of the Supply Chain
Operations Reference (SCOR) system posit that supply chain efforts
should be determined at multiple tiers and given five categories of metrics to
the first level of this model. The parameters
include dependability, reaction, flexibility, cost and effectiveness factors. This has also been
identified with Qatar Airlines, and the internal systems show that the
company’s supply chain has been the force behind the company’s outstanding
performance and competitiveness in Asia and globally.

The oldest
maxim that it is impossible to manage a thing if left unmeasured has played a critical
role in motivating the organizations involved with supply chain systems to
focus on the measuring their logistics. According to (Chibba, 2007, p. 16), the leading
concept of measuring the performance is to identify the key improvement areas in the supply chain. The process of measuring
the performance has been described as the
method of estimating the proportion of the strength of the quantitative
characteristic or relation to a unit of the same feature. The process of performance determination involves
comparing how the objects relate, for example,
dimensions. For instance, the performance measure for an airways company could
be service quality: “were the customers happy for the services delivered
onboard?”

Today,
organizations attempt to determine performance in many areas of their
engagements. Performance measurement areas are the overall customer experience
effort where the quality of the product and delivery time is a significant
consideration (Chen, et al., 2004, p. 503).
Operations and production efforts are also measurement areas, and they offer an
assessment of how the company is utilizing its resources to satisfy the
customer needs. Performance measurement is also
conducted for employees, which help in determining the productivity of
the organizations and identifying the areas which require improvement.
Companies also conduct financial performance measures by using the
financial records, to evaluate its
financial position and comparing itself with its rivals in the sector. Performance
measurement helps the organizations to benchmark to understand ways of making things better (Christopher & Towill, 2001, p. 237).

Nevertheless,
to establish an effective measurement
system, a company requires an understanding
of its internal operations as well as the interactions between customers and
the suppliers. The organization has to determine what performance metric to use
to gain this knowledge. As Robson (2004, p. 512) postulated,
it is hard to justify the additional cost of executing a measurement method if
the company does not understand the
specific conditions under which the measurement metric ca or cannot improve the
efficiency. According to (Lambert & Pohlen
(2001, p. 2), most of the performance
measures understood to be logistics measures just focus on the internal
operations without necessarily capturing how the company derives profitability
from the network. The metrics of supply chain performance is made up of parameters that can entirely explain the
logistics and production effort of the whole system,
as viewed by the end consumers, as well as every party in the order, as seen by the downstream members of the
chain. However, there is some supply
chain effort dimensions that can be evaluated such as quality, delivery,
flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Qatar Airways Ltd.

Qatar Airways
Ltd is an aviation company owned by the state flag bearer of Qatar. Its
headquarters are at Doha (Qatar Airways Website,
2011) and it operates hub-and-spoke supply chain, linking more than 150
termini in Africa, Europe, America, Middle East, and Oceania, among others,
from Hamad International Airport. The company prides itself on a fleet of over 180 aircraft. Qatar Airways has over
forty thousand employees, where almost twenty-four thousand workers directly
for the Qatar Airways. In 2013, the company became an affiliate of Oneworld
alliance; becoming the first carrier in Gulf to sign with one of the three
carrier networks. The company was established
in 1993, and it started operating in 1994, and as at 2017, it is owned by the
Qatari government. Its control by the government began in 2013, after the 50% buyout from the previous foreign
cabinet member and other stakeholders (Menon,
2014, p. 1). Qatar Airways is made up of Qatar Aircraft Catering
Company, Doha International Airport, United Media International, Qatar Duty-Free, Qatar Holidays, Qatar Distribution
Company, Aviation Operations, and Qatar Executive. Qatar Airways operates
within the upstream of the service sector (Qatar
Airways Website, 2017). The primary operations include the air
transportation of passengers and cargo around the world.

The company has
experienced a myriad of challenges since its founding, mainly from the competition from the global air transport from the
companies such as Singapore Airlines, Etihad, Emirates, and Air India, among
other airlines, operating either from the region or other parts of the world (MbaSchool.com, n.d, n.p). Other imminent
challenges that the company faces include the increase in fuel prices, which
drove the company to use the gas to liquid technology in fueling its jets. The issue of high fuel costs in the airline sectors
has been a plague for many businesses. In 2014, the International Air Transport
Association had projected that more than two hundred billion dollars would be
spent in the fueling of the jets, which made thirty percent of the running
expenses (Alagos, 2014, p. 1). Events following the cutting of
diplomatic ties with other Gulf nations in June 2017, which is set to put the
company at financial and operational headwinds
(Kane, 2017, p. 1). Other challenges include the past accidents of the firm which have affected the brand in many
times, and very little Domestic Traffic and limited market presence expansion
of Qatar Airways. The company is also likely to face unfavorable operating
scenarios due to government legislation.

However, in
spite of the challenges that the company faces, it continues to operate from
its base usually, with most of the
flights operating according to the timetable. The company continues to grow its
network and strengthening its supply
chain around the world. Qatar Airways has established its philosophy of
operations “Going Places Together” (News, 2015,
n.p) which implies that its strength depends
on the supply chain and logistics. The slogan has evolved over the years; the first was “taking you
personally” and then “World’s 5-star airline”
(Qatar Airways, 2012, n.p). These slogans are not just marketing lines,
but they reflect the quality of life as an employee and a customer in the Qatar
Airways. The company continues to add in its
fleet of airlines and create new networks
considering the restrictions of entering such airspaces such as those of Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and other Middle East neighbors. Therefore, this implies that
Qatar Airways should strategize and use new mechanisms to retain their global
airline influence and competitiveness. The company has however enacted measures
o ensure that it remains relevant. Some of these operations include launching
of direct flights to Dublin, in Ireland and putting in place support of the
customers affected by the current diplomatic crises and ensuring that they
continue to deliver world-class service (Press
Releases, 2017).

Other
activities that are ensuring that the company remains competitive is a brand improvement and fleet variety, in-flight
service quality improvement, as well as investment
in the modern technologies, to
support the existing systems. One other way of making sure that the company
succeeds in minimizing costs will be the employment of a proper supply chain
management system, and to establish measures to ensure that the same is evaluated
on a constant basis (Kouremaa, et al., 2005).

Qatar Airways has a division of
Procurement and Supply Chain within its finance department whose
responsibilities is to efficiently coordinate the supply chain and ensuring
that there are no operational disturbances
(Qatar Airlines Website, 2016). It is also the role of the head of this
department to reduce the operational cost by ensuring swiftness in the supply
chain. The procurement and supply chain coordinator should ensure that all
Supply Chain Management Systems are up to date. The SCM systems already in the
company include Inventory Management System (IMS), Halo Asset Tracking System
(HATS), and Facilities Management System (FMS).

The department is also charged with the obligation
of making item codes in the database system and ensuring adherence to the QR
guidelines in inserting the codes in the
database (Qatar Airlines Website, 2016).
The department works closely with the Procurement Department to raise the
Purchase Enquiry appeals for starting the RFQ procedure. The coordinator should
the follow up with the supplier delivery timetables
and ensuring that the process is complete with
the Purchase Enquiry to Purchase Receipt. Some of the activities include
Purchase Order, receipt of the products, and recording of the unique
identification code and mapping the unique identifiers in the Halo Asset
Tracking System. To ensure efficiency and
accuracy, the coordinator should also all details are stated on the
purchase requests as initially asked and
compare with the list on the purchase orders and distributing the purchase
orders to respective parties. Other relevant supply chain management activities
in the company include planning, storage, forecasting, customer service
management and material logistics (Akdogan &
Demirtas, 2014, p. 1020). To ensure the
efficacy of the operations, the supply chain department has invested in performance evaluation for all
supply chain operations.

Supply Chain
Management in Qatar Airways

Upstream and
downstream relationships often define the supply chain of a company. According
to Chibba (2007, p. 5)supply chain management is described as the management of the upstream and
downstream networks of supplier and customer with a purpose of delivering high-quality
customer service at a reduced cost to the supply network at large. The upstream
SC include the suppliers and vendors and internal functions while the
downstream comprises of the customers, and in the case of Qatar Airways, the
plane passengers and cargo. The supply chain management is also concerned with
the control of financial and physical
material flow. From this, it is notable that proper integration of the
economic, physical, and information resources gives the company the desired
efficacy.

Supply Chain Management has rapidly advanced over the
recent past, owing to globalization and the development of information
technology (Ballou, 2016, p. 3). The
primary goal of an enterprise in a computing
environment has always been reducing the operational costs while increasing
profitability. Currently, it is the supply chains of the companies that compete
against each other, and not just organizations
against each other. all the actors in the supply chain management, both in the
upstream and downstream, are parties who affect the output, that is, the
quality, overhead, and delivery. The primary competitive metric in most
organizations is the measure of the end users’ satisfaction
since they pay for the operating and productions costs (Voss, 2002, p. 71). Therefore, for a company to know that its supply
chain is efficient, it must measure it against the long-lasting strategic
alliance and vendor-client relationship, cross-organizational logistics
planning, corporate planning and stock management, and information
dissemination.

The Best Supply
Chain Management Practices

It is a
requirement for all businesses, either large or small to maintain efficient
supply chains, as using them for their competitive advantage. For an airline
company, like Qatar Airways, the company should determine the best practices,
and identify which one is most applicable to their environment. The supply chain management encapsulates four
significant areas, and none should be considered more favorably than the
other. They are the plan, source, make and deliver
(Cornerstone, 2017, p. 1).

Plan

Planning
comprises of activities such as demand forecasting, inventory control and
pricing strategy (Cornerstone, 2017, p. 1).
Prediction gives the basis for the supply
chain and requires all the organizational
units to have clearly-set objectives, based on
the historical information as well as the current state of affairs, including
supply and demand. The company should have a forecasting method that reduces
the extent of errors, and this implies that the supply chain integrates all the
departments to use the previous information in obtaining an accurate number.
For instance, Qatar Airways could use historical data from its procurement
department, sales department, finance unit and use the data to predict how the
demand and supply trends in the next one year. Collaboration is another aspect
of the planning in supply chain management that plays a critical role in
ensuring that the information is shared
accurately and timely. Without people, an organization is not, and therefore,
there should be an open and often communication mechanism to encourage teamwork
environment.

Measuring is
also crucial in telling how the supply
chain is working for the organization.
The company should employ the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPI); and for
the Qatar Airways, the most recommended KPIs would be customer return rate,
inventory carrying overheads, and employee communication. Working with standard
indicators can be helpful, and companies have adopted the use of Supply Chain
Operations Reference model (SCOR) to get an industry-specific logistics
analysis. The industry-specific KPIs provides a guideline for measuring the
metrics, which will consequently show the improvement areas, including
protecting the environment (Ntabe, et al., 2015,
p. 310).

Source

To ensure efficacy in the supply chain, the logistics
operations should be transparent and
flexible; which results in viable performance of the supply chain (Cornerstone, 2017, p. 2). Flexible logistics
operations imply the ability to
reconfigure activities according to the current
customer demands. The company should work within the pre-set operations
frameworks, but it should be ready to change to
accommodate the changing requirements of the customers. Inventory
availability is the priority of the
companies, to ensure that there is always an available fleet for customers to
book. The Airline Company should also consider Value-Added Services that
provide customized and differentiated services to increase customer
satisfaction.

Make

Technology has
been a backbone of the modern-day
business. Technologies to automate warehouse services and ultimately ensure
that customers get what they want (Kouremaa et
al., 2005). Automated speeds up the operations thus saving money and
time. For instance, the Qatar Airways implementing the Warehouse Management
System enables it to know precisely when
the snacks are almost over, and if there is a need to purchase another jet.
Technology in the making process can be used to ensure that tickets are
available online. The online system should indicate when the planes are
available and offer flexible ways to book and pay for the tickets.

Deliver

External
Collaboration is a practice that involves partnerships with stakeholders,
suppliers and most importantly, the customer
(Chen, et al., 2004, p. 205). It is important to always communicate with
the customer, to remain updated with the customer needs and wants. An
organization that keeps contact with the supplier is likely to get their orders
processed on time and fill the customer
orders as it happens. Technology can be used in creating Virtual Supply Chain,
to be used in capturing customer demand and thereby increasing transparency of
the whole supply chain.

Reverse
Logistics is also an emerging supply chain management practice that ensures
that the products are optimally utilized.
It is also referred to as Return Processing
and is useful in measuring the cycle-time performance metrics (A., et al., 2016, n.p). Particularly for
Qatar Airways, the company can improve its performance if it utilized the
recycling and reuse of its products. The organization could also accommodate
for flight cancellations and postponements to ensure customer convenience.
However, to ensure that the process is successful, the company should lay down
the clear and concise method of reverse logistics.

Recommendations

The practices mentioned above cut across most
industries, including the airline industries. However, considering the current
situation at Qatar Airlines and struggles, this paper recommends the following.

Collaboration;
this could be both in external and internal levels. Information-sharing is
critical, and for an organization that wants to remain competitive, then it
must ensure that information received by the different parties in the supply
chain is timely and accurate (Cornerstone, 2017,
p. 2). For instance, the company should work closely with the customers
who have been affected by the diplomatic issues between Qatari state and its
Middle East neighbors. It is clear that the removal of the routes has influenced the many customers in those
countries or who were using the Qatar Airlines to such states.
Technology;
In the contemporary business, technology is the primary enabler in the supply
chains and logistics operations (Engel, 2011,
n.p). Qatar Airways should ensure that its technology is up-to-date to
support the Purchase Enquiry, Purchase Order, and Purchase Receipt. The supply
chain systems used should also be continuously
checked and maintained to ensure that they are operating efficiently and
effectively. Technology is also useful for the customers to book the tickets and give their feedback. The
company’s website should always be operational, and if it has to be closed, the customers should be informed of the same. The company’s technology could also facilitate
marketing practices; through social media, digital posters, and ads,
among others.
Flexible logistics
operations, and particularly value-addition and differentiation. This is to ensure that diverse customer base
gets various needs met in different ways.
The company should avail a variety of
fleet planes used for passengers and cargo according to the customer demands. There
should also be a way of allows the customers to track their flight time and
exchange flights if need be.

While the
above-mentioned recommended practices are crucial for the organization success,
Qatar Airlines ensure that its staff is appropriately aligned and conversant with the
supply chain activities in a manner that will maximize its efficiency and lead to
commensurate benefits to the organization (Engel, 2011, n.p). Furthermore, above
collaboration, the company, which has already made
alliances, Qatar Airlines should ensure that it creates long-term partnerships with its suppliers. It should
initiate relationships with its suppliers and provide a two-way communication
to ensure fruitful exchange and information.

Conclusion

Overall, supply chain
management is an integral part of the modern-day business environment, and the organizations
are striving to create a competitive
supply chain and logistics operations. Qatar Airlines is an already established
organization with adequately defined
supply chain operations. This paper has explored the theoretical basis of
supply chain management about Qatar
Airlines, describing the various stakeholders both in the upstream and
downstream. As illustrated, the core
purpose of maintaining a competitive supply chain management is to improve the
customer satisfaction. This paper has further explored the best supply chain practices and narrowed them down to the level of relevance to Qatar
Airways. Therefore, with the implementation
of the efficient supply chain management
system

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