Tire-building machinery producer Safe-Run Group (Safe-Run) was a second-tier supplier in the automotive industry. Responding to “green supply chain” initiatives in the industry, including by Safe-Run’s major clients, the company started working on a new environmentally friendly meridian machine. The results of a pilot test led by Zhijun Li, vice-president and head of research and development at Safe-Run, proved very promising both in terms of energy consumption and productivity, yet senior management remained skeptical. In a meeting with Li, senior executives expressed concerns about the higher production costs and the reaction of Safe-Run’s main customers. Li needed to build a better business case for the new machine.
Tire manufacturer Linglong initiated its green supply chain management (GSCM) program in 2018. By extending the ongoing green practices from within the organization to external supply chain partners, Linglong developed a green concept based on the entire product life cycle, which involved materials suppliers, equipment suppliers, distributors, and other stakeholders. After a one-year trial, the company saw an opportunity to mitigate the environmental risks in the supply chain and to enhance both environmental and economic performance at the supply chain level. However, the company also encountered challenges, such as the supply chain partners’ limited understanding of the value of GSCM and a lack of senior leadership support among suppliers. Faced with these challenges, Linglong had to decide whether to extend its GSCM program and how to improve it.
Huluwa Technology Co. Ltd. (Huluwa) was a small manufacturer of children’s smart watches in China. The company’s smart watches could be monitored by parents in real time through an application installed on their phones. The product design, application development, raw material procurement, and cloud service were all operated by Huluwa, while production was outsourced to a factory. Huluwa mainly relied on its offline channels to sell products. In April 2016, looking back at the first-quarter data for the year, the company’s operations director noted that Huluwa had sold and delivered 150,000 units to its distributors while it had produced 200,000 units. Puzzled by that gap, he was also worried about the production capacity stretch imposed on the contract manufacturer. How could the company manage continuing growth for the product?
Jinrun Li, chief operating officer for Goodbaby Group (Goodbaby), had to make a decision about opening a new store in a high-end mall in Shanghai, China. Goodbaby was going to manage the store for one of its clients, who had its own specifications for the dimensions and product range of the store. However, the floor space available was too small to accommodate the preferred proposal from Goodbaby’s marketing department. Based on a recent pilot project, Li considered adopting a new supply chain structure that would allow for reduced floor space while complying with the client’s specifications. The new supply chain structure involved an upfront warehouse that would increase the speed of store replenishments and act as a buffer between the regional warehouse and the store. Looking at the data, Li wondered if this new structure would be the solution for the proposed new store.
In October 2014, Carestream Health Inc. (Xiamen) (CHX) was faced with a supply chain disruption caused by a labour dispute involving most of the ports on the west coast of the United States. The work-to-rule strike was having a considerable impact on the operations of the ports and was putting pressure on CHX’s lean supply chain. In particular, the supply of wide rolls of films, the key material to CHX operations, was compromised. In an emergency meeting, CHX’s management team discussed using other shipping options. One of these options, (airfreighting) appeared to be feasible but costly. The meeting’s leader who was the director of the Asia Pacific Lean Six Sigma asked the management team to determine when CHX should use airfreight for its supply of wide rolls, how many rolls should be airfreighted each time, and what the best mechanism would be to govern the use of airfreight.
This case series, set in June 2018, follows a student in a master's degree program in Environment and Sustainability who was invited to lead a waste audit for Innovation Works London, a non-profit organization. Case (A) introduces Innovation Works London and its need for the audits. Case (B) refers to an unforeseen event that arose just a few hours before the actual audit—the bulk of organic waste collected for the audit had been unintentionally picked up by the third-party waste hauler. In Case (C), the waste audit team considers the results of the waste audit. The team has to calculate the waste diversion rate and prepare its recommendations for improvement.
Case (B) follows Case (A), product 9B18D024, in the case series. Case (B) refers to an unforeseen event that arose just a few hours before the actual audit.
In January 2017, the owner of Re-Matt Inc. (Re-Matt), a mattress recycling operation, was considering the way forward for the business he had developed in the city of Calgary, Alberta. Re-Matt was a unique enterprise in Alberta where municipalities, both urban and rural, had been categorizing mattresses as waste, and sending them to landfills for disposal, for decades. Re-Matt’s business was diverting used mattresses from landfills and recycling them by routing their individual components back into the economic streams and recovering value. The company had reached an annual revenue of CA$500,000 in just two years. Its owner was now weighing his options with respect to scaling up Re-Matt’s operations, as well as trying to identify ways of differentiating Re-Matt from its potential competition.
Erie Thames Powerlines, an electricity distributor in Southwestern Ontario, needed to determine the suitability of the company acquiring a hybrid truck as opposed to a conventional diesel utility truck. As of early July 2016, the truck suppliers (for both hybrid and diesel trucks) and the internal accounting department had provided substantial information with which to conduct a thorough analysis. The company also wanted to include some qualitative aspects, such as the reduction of noise pollution and the positive contributions of hybrid trucks both to the company’s image and to its promotion of energy efficiency. The firm needed to build an appropriate business analysis that included both qualitative and quantitative elements to support a recommendation to the utility company’s board of directors in August 2016.
The chief executive officer of TCL Multimedia, a global TV manufacturer based in China, looked at the company’s first-half financial results with some concern. The results did not meet his expectations, and the company had lost market shares, both in China and internationally. Although he was confident that the new, recently adopted corporate strategy would enable a better future positioning of the company, he knew that without the appropriate supply chain design, the effectiveness of the new corporate strategy could suffer.
For the past 30 years, the president of Benevento Foods, a food processor located in northern New York State, has overseen unprecedented growth. In June 2014, the family-owned company has 90 full-time employees and provides baking mixes and bases to both small stand-alone bakeries and national grocery chains across the United States. It has plans to expand distribution to Mexico and Japan and to develop new product lines, especially for gluten-free items. However, it faces a serious quality failure: one of its customers has discovered pieces of rubber in the latest delivery of baking mix. Is this an isolated event or indicative of a bigger issue? Is it symptomatic of a poor quality culture, lack of accountability on the shop floor and/or a misallocation of resources? What can be done to solve the current problem and make sure it does not happen again?
In January 2013, the new chief executive officer of the Sonnen Trucking Company, a family-owned business, is considering how to reduce fleet insurance costs. As profit margins are very tight and continuing to shrink, she has to think about variables she can control in order to affect the bottom line positively. Insurance costs are the logical item to address since they are based on the company’s safety and accident records and the extent that it is willing to support a deductible. Should she institute a self-insured model or stick with the standard insurance model? She also must choose a risk mitigation/prevention strategy involving either disciplinary measures or the newly developed Drive Safe program. Whatever she decides to do, she must make sure that she retains good drivers and attracts new trainees who will be motivated to focus on safety and good customer relations in order to build the business.
Sears Canada’s associate vice-president of sustainability faces dilemmas in executing a strategy to reduce the retailer’s carbon footprint. He needs to integrate the concept of sustainability into the company’s larger corporate objectives, drive the concept in individual business units and identify the metrics for tracking the progress of reducing Sears Canada’s carbon footprint.<br><br>The (B) case, 9B13D015, is positioned two years later, when the associate vice-president is about to leave the company and needs to plan for the transition.
An assistant manager of a university student residence is aware that there are capacity and service problems in the cafeteria. Long waits in line were common, and he hoped to propose some improvements to residence management, preferably ones with no major investments or disbursements involved.