Essay Sample on Navigating Complexities in Supply Chain Management

Introduction

In the current business environment, an organization has to set its strategies and priorities right, especially in managing the quality of products and services it receives or produces. Supply chain management is one of the quality-related issues that is today growing in its complexity. The business then needs to evolve to countermeasure such complexities. The today complexity is arising from the vibrant interactions of an extensive array of processes, resolutions to be made, and organizations that require an understanding to have an upper hand in the market. The supply chain system used to be linear, which is not the case today, but is categorized by a system of organizations with independent and diverse networks. For this reason, the quality management community is reconsidering on renowned concepts and conventional ideas. Therefore, there is a need to develop new ideas and theories to capture the current market needs.

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New Technologies

Technology has been evolving for ages now, and it has had a crucial role in the advancement mentioned above of supply chain system. With new complex problems arising with time, so is technology in the supply chain. There has stood unremitting technological advancement like amplified actuality, unswerving digital development, warehouse computerization, and 3D lithography (Cannella et al., 2018). The new technologies have opened a range of prospects from the perspective of the chain of supply. In the way of solving the complexities that arises, the latest technologies have enabled the proficiency and flexibility of production and dissemination. Besides, technology has helped amend the correlation between the different strata in the chain of supply, especially on the consumer.

In ensuring that a company or an organization has a competitive advantage of the quality products and services, technology has to be a part of them. It enables an organization to build its relationships properly through the supply chain system. Besides, the new technology has enabled foster areas of research within the supply chain system and quality management in general as it has given a precise and robust managerial application. It is an essential key in tracking down problems through proper management of data and execution of decisions made. The smallest details can be captured that may otherwise might have been overlook or forgotten. Every data used in an organization is crucial when using methodological approaches that use the data.

Innovative Methodological Approaches

As the business market changes daily, new opportunities and challenges present themselves. The need to overcome them has been met by incorporating the new technologies in the market and fostering the innovative methodological approaches for quality purposes and acquiring a viable advantage in the market. In facilitating productivity and innovation, decision-makers in an organization should be well prepared with the methodological structures to facilitate them in acknowledging the different glitches before reaching a robust solutions (Cannella et al., 2018). There have been several methodological approaches verified to be essential to the chain of supply, like agent-based models and ambiguous control system, among others. Despite having the methodological approaches, some organizations may fail to execute them appropriately, and therefore, good decision-makers and quality assurance managers need to be employed to help with the execution.

Reflection

It is the responsibility of the organization's leaders to identify the actual problem affecting the supply chain system as well as the quality of the products and services. Leader-led behavior is a critical component in shaping the quality culture of an entity systematically. Quality should not be viewed as a department but as a company-wide responsibility (Choi & Luo, 2019). New technologies have proven to be efficient and flexible; managers should implement them within their organizations to be at par with the rest. The leaders have the responsibility of ensuring the proper goods and services are delivered instead of low-quality products and services.

The most exciting area is the incorporation of the latest new technology in an organization. The employees may find it difficult to adjust at first, but sometimes it is the only solution to producing quality products, especially in manufacturing companies. Besides, the innovative methodological approach by decision-makers is crucial in solving problems. For instance, in the article, Z. Chen's paper is mentioned on how 3D production influences global container multimodal conveyance system (Cannella et al., 2018). They develop a dynamic prototype of a sneakers' supply chain and established an inclusive index system, which was not enough. They seek a robust solution in which they think more complex changes need to be made by working together with trade cooperation. On the other end, technology is crucial in capturing data to improve the process itself and the process of decision making.

Cannella et al., 2018 go further to give detailed examples of companies and organization that handled quality and supply chain challenges and the resolutions they incorporated using the new technologies and methodological approaches. Citing the example of the D.A.O Vera et al., a paper they includes in their article, Cannella et al., 2018 applied a methodological approach of mathematical adjustment and a scheme of experiments to maximize their profits in a four-stratum supply chain. Their goal was to examine the locality of manufacturing amenities and delivery centers, assortment of suitable purveyors, and allocation of material flow in a four-echelon supply chain (Choi & Luo, 2019). They proceeded to measure how their operational and financial performers will be impacted by the quality, delivery time, and capacity. There are complex dynamics that govern the supply of products and services and the quality given. In my future career, I feel that areas of innovative methodological approaches and incorporation of the available new technologies will be essential in attaining quality products and services.

References

Cannella, S., Dominguez, R., Framinan, J. M., & Ponte, B. (2018). Evolving trends in supply chain management: complexity, new technologies, and innovative methodological approaches. Complexity, 2018. Retrieved from http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/2018/7916849.pdf

Choi, T. M., & Luo, S. (2019). Data quality challenges for sustainable fashion supply chain operations in emerging markets: Roles of blockchain, government sponsors, and environment taxes. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 131, 139-152. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2019.09.019