The Hindu Business Line : Factors that determine supply chain management

"Business strategy of being a cost leader or being the fastest service provider determines the supply chain management (SCM) of a company and there is always a trade-off between cost and service," Mr Pradeep Jadav, Manager of Chainalytics said.

Addressing OPUS 2006 seminar at the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIMK), he said that the first and critical step for a successful design of an SCM is to develop the cost structure for the company.

Business Line was the media partner and Cool Avenues the online media partner for the event, which had speakers ranging from Mumbai Dabbawallahs to technical experts on supply chain management.

Success

Mr Syed Haq, Senior Project Manager, Miebach Logistics, highlighted the reasons that made supply chain management so crucial to the industry. Stressing that the major function of SCM was to integrate various functional units of a value chain, he narrated the case of a lubricant manufacturer where ultimate efficiency achieved at one level of the chain was in fact the reason for issues at various ends.

Mr Rakesh Rajora Vice-President, Operational Excellence Lead at Accenture, dwelt on how cost, quality, delivery and service can be the four vectors of value addition and how six sigma practices are catering to these. "Thinking out of the box is what excellence is all about" and coming up with `little sparks of innovations', were according to him the key to operational excellence.

"All we know is that consequences of errors are adverse to our customers and we strive to minimise them," said Mr Gangaram Talekar, Secretary of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, also popularly known as the Dabbawallahs.

The 5,000-strong Dabbawallahs deliver over 2 lakh Tiffin boxes everyday in Mumbai city and were certified to have achieved Six Sigma in 2001. Every day, in a span of just 3 hours from morning 9 o'clock to 12 noon, the Dabbawallahs make sure that they pick up all the lunch boxes from homes and deliver them to the rightful owners in the offices.

Each Tiffin box is coded in such a way that in spite of changing hands four to six times a day, it doesn't get lost in the way or end up with the wrong person.

"Our quality, customer care and supply chain are excellent. We have 99.999999 per cent performance and 100 per cent customer satisfaction," said Mr Raghunath Megde, President of the Dabbawallahs.

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