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In January 2020, Ashwani Gupta took over as COO at Nissan Motor Corporation, and several weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nissan's Business Continuity Plan (BCP) had been key to the resilience of Nissan's supply chain. It had enabled Nissan to recover from past supply chain disruptions, mainly natural disasters, sooner than its competitors. This case describes the BCP, within the context of Nissan's production methods, organizational principles and current financial position. It relates how Gupta managed the rapidly-evolving restrictions that the coronavirus pandemic required as it spread from China to other countries where Nissan's assembly plants and suppliers were located. Based on his experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, Gupta considers how to improve the BCP. This case also covers a specific situation in India, where Nissan had to quickly find an alternate supplier for a unit of dashboard gauges. The team in India developed four options that can be evaluated by students.

At the November 2019 Open Day conference, the vice-president of JD.com shared his understanding of the role that supplier collaboration played in an uncertain environment. Through 15 years of fast growth, JD.com had become the largest business-to-consumer platform in China with more than 30,000 suppliers. Using a boundless retail strategy, JD.com had to build a seamless channel from supplier to customer, which required a close look at how to collaborate with the suppliers through digital technology. However, working with people from different companies raised many challenges. Without a proper solution, the effectiveness of the supplier collaboration would suffer.

At the November 2019 Open Day conference, the vice-president of JD.com shared his understanding of the role that supplier collaboration played in an uncertain environment. Through 15 years of fast growth, JD.com had become the largest business-to-consumer platform in China with more than 30,000 suppliers. Using a boundless retail strategy, JD.com had to build a seamless channel from supplier to customer, which required a close look at how to collaborate with the suppliers through digital technology. However, working with people from different companies raised many challenges. Without a proper solution, the effectiveness of the supplier collaboration would suffer.

Jay Bharat Spices Pvt. Ltd., a company located in Cuttack, India, was involved in the manufacturing and distribution of spices across India under the brand name Bharat Masala. The company specialized in producing basic spices such as turmeric powder, cumin powder, and chili powder. The senior management team had recently noticed a rise in demand for the spice garam masala in the East India market and asked the company’s vice-president of East India operations to oversee the launch of this new product over the next six months. The vice-president was now struggling with multiple constraints related to the launch, including storage capacity in the warehouse and various financial constraints that were forcing him to look for a more economical and efficient solution.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W25298.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W25299.

The outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease, 2019) posed unprecedented challenges to the global supply chains. As a leading and innovative supply chain that achieved just-in-time manufacturing, Apple's performance was put in the spotlight. This case describes how Apple's supply chain has coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. Apple's supply chain has weathered natural disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, floods, and SARS; the risks and challenges brought by the outbreak of COVID-19 were unprecedented and complicated. Unlike the symptoms of SARS patients with high fever, the symptoms of COVID-19 varied; some patients had no symptoms at all, which made them difficult to identify. Moreover, the pandemic complicated supply chain planning because it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict where the next epicenter would be and what measures local governments might take to prevent the further spread of the virus. Social distancing was effective to control the pandemic, but it brought both challenges and opportunities for companies like Apple. On the one hand, social distancing slowed the manufacturing process and had a negative impact on the economy, which could dampen consumer confidence and reduce demand. On the other hand, social distancing boosted the demands for electronic devices, as many people had to work at home. Using this case study, students will understand the importance of risk management in supply chain management and learn the challenges and opportunities of the disruption posed to business operations. The case provides an opportunity for students to discuss and understand why some companies can recover from the disruptions better than other companies and how a resilient supply chain can improve a company's competitiveness.

Atal Indore City Transport Service Limited operated Indore Bus Rapid Transit System, the main public transport system in the city of Indore, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Indore Bus Rapid Transit System ran through an important section of the city, along a corridor 11.57 kilometres long with 21 bus stops. Operating the system involved meeting hourly demand for bus service-a task that required scheduling buses and their deployment to achieve the desired frequency. Indore Bus Rapid Transit System used modern technologies to identify passenger demand and the location of vehicles at all times during operation, and it used the data to plan and execute bus operations. Demand varied considerably between bus stops; therefore, management science techniques were needed for optimal planning. How could passenger service be maximized while optimizing the use of buses?

Student spreadsheet to case W21259

Atal Indore City Transport Service Limited operated Indore Bus Rapid Transit System, the main public transport system in the city of Indore, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Indore Bus Rapid Transit System ran through an important section of the city, along a corridor 11.57 kilometres long with 21 bus stops. Operating the system involved meeting hourly demand for bus service—a task that required scheduling buses and their deployment to achieve the desired frequency. Indore Bus Rapid Transit System used modern technologies to identify passenger demand and the location of vehicles at all times during operation, and it used the data to plan and execute bus operations. Demand varied considerably between bus stops; therefore, management science techniques were needed for optimal planning. How could passenger service be maximized while optimizing the use of buses?

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B21D008.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B21D008.

Founded in 2010, 111 Inc. was a leading online, direct-sales pharmacy in China. As an early entrant to China's online health care market, 111 Inc. developed various operational capabilities to support and expand its businesses, including a smart supply chain, big-data technologies, omnichannel capabilities, and operation on both business-to-consumer and business-to-business models. The online health care market in China had been growing rapidly in recent years, especially with the support of new government policies. Therefore, many companies were showing great interest in the industry's new opportunities, including Alibaba Group Holding Limited, JD.com Inc., Pingduoduo Inc., and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Considering the imminent market entry of these technology giants, with their vast customer bases and extensive amounts of capital, 111 Inc. was wondering what it should do to sustain and grow its competitive advantage.

Coats, the largest thread maker in the world, transformed its business to digital colour measurement so that it could respond better to customer demand in the garment industry for rapid product cycles and more fragmented colour choices. Its embrace of digital colour measurement technologies enabled customers to drive ever shorter fulfilment cycles. But the company faced a monumental challenge in forecasting demand for the wide spectrum of colours and thread types, and it had shifted to an ABC inventory classification model for make-to-stock versus make-to-order products. The question at hand was whether it should now consolidate some of its high volume make-to-stock manufacturing in an ultra-low-cost location while leaving the make-to-order products close to the customer.

As a result of recent success and rapid growth, the Skyrose Marketing Agency team was becoming overwhelmed with significant variation in workload levels. The vice-president, who was responsible for managing the company’s clients from the beverage industry, wanted to smooth the team’s workload level to improve morale. She also wanted to remain attentive to her clients’ needs, which could increase as peak holiday seasons approached. The vice-president was considering using Google Trends to predict how popular certain beverage products would be in the future so that her beverage company clients could predict future sales volumes. She hoped that by forecasting proxy sales for three specific clients she could gain key insight to help her smooth the volume levels of her team’s workload, without having a negative impact on her client relationships.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B21E009.

Food safety and fraud were long-standing issues in China. For some imported products, such as Australian beef steak, food fraud could be a massive issue: consumers could purchase the wrong or even harmful products, and legitimate brands subsequently lost sales and reputation. BeefLedger Ltd. (BeefLedger) was an Australian blockchain start-up company that aimed to solve these issues by using blockchain technology to supply authentic beef products to customers in China and elsewhere. The technology also significantly improved transparency in the beef supply chain. Since 2017, BeefLedger had gained important experience in this area and achieved a certain level of success.<br><br>The concept of blockchain, proposed in late 2008 and used successfully used in finance since then, was still in its infancy in other areas. The next promising field to adopt blockchain was supply chain management, where the technology had the potential to revolutionize the supply chain with its unique functions, including immutability and decentralization. However, many challenges emerged for BeefLedger during blockchain implementation—especially in early 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Australia–China tensions. BeefLedger now had to determine how to handle these recent challenges.

Founded in 2010, 111 Inc. was a leading online, direct-sales pharmacy in China. As an early entrant to China’s online health care market, 111 Inc. developed various operational capabilities to support and expand its businesses, including a smart supply chain, big-data technologies, omnichannel capabilities, and operation on both business-to-consumer and business-to-business models. The online health care market in China had been growing rapidly in recent years, especially with the support of new government policies. Therefore, many companies were showing great interest in the industry’s new opportunities, including Alibaba Group Holding Limited, JD.com Inc., Pingduoduo Inc., and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Considering the imminent market entry of these technology giants, with their vast customer bases and extensive amounts of capital, 111 Inc. was wondering what it should do to sustain and grow its competitive advantage.