敏捷供应链多变的市场竞争外文翻译Word文档格式.docx

1、外文原文The Agile Supply Chain : Competing in Volatile Markets Industrial Marketing Management, Vol 29. 2000Martin Christopher Cranfield School of Management, UK Turbulent and volatile markets are becoming the norm as life-cycles shorten and global economic and competitive forces create additional uncer

2、tainty. The risk attached to lengthy and slow-moving logistics pipelines has become unsustainable, forcing organizations to look again at how their supply chains are structured and managed. This paper suggests that the key to survival in these changed conditions is through agility, in particular by

3、the creation of responsive supply chains. The importance of time as a competitive weapon has been recognized for some time .The ability to be able to meet the demands of customers for ever-shorter delivery times and to ensure that supply can be synchronized to meet the peaks and troughsofdemandis cl

4、early of critical importance in this era of time-based competition .To become more responsive to the needs of the market requires more than speed, it also requires a high level of maneuverability that today has come to be termed agility.What is Agility? Agility is a business-wide capability that emb

5、races organizational structures, information，systems, logistics processes and, in particular, mindsets. A key characteristic of an agile organization is flexibility. Indeed the origins of agility as a business concept lies inflexible manufacturing systems （FMS）. Initially it was thought that the rou

6、te to manufacturing flexibility was through automation to enable rapid change and thus a greater responsiveness to changes in product mix or volume. Later this idea of manufacturing flexibility was extended into the wider business context and the concept of agility as an organizational orientation w

7、as born. Agility should not be confused with leanness. Lean is about doing more with less. The term is often used in connection with lean manufacturing to imply a zero inventory, just-in-time approach. Paradoxically, many companies that have adopted lean manufacturing as a business practice are anyt

8、hing but agile in their supply chain. The car industry in many ways illustrates this conundrum. The origins of lean manufacturing can be traced to the Toyota Production System （TPS）, with its focus on the reduction and elimination of waste.Whilst the lessons learned from the TPS principles have had

9、a profound impact manufacturing practices in a wide range of industries around the world, it seems that the tendency has been for the benefits of lean thinking to be restricted to the factory. Thus we encounter the paradoxical situation where vehicle manufacture is extremely efficient with throughpu

10、t time in the factory typically down to twelve hours or less, yet inventory of finished vehicles can be as high as two months of sales and still the customer has to wait for weeks or even months to get the car of their choice!Whilst leanness may be an element of agility in certain circumstances, by

11、itself it will notenable the organization to meet the precise needs of the customer more rapidly.Websters Dictionary makes the distinction clearly when it defines lean as containing little fat whereas agile is defined as nimble.There are certain conditions where a lean approach makes sense. In parti

12、cular where demand is predictable and the requirement for variety is low and volume is high. In fact the very conditions in which Toyota developed the lean philosophy. The problems arise when we attempt to implant that philosophy into situations where demand is less predictable, the requirement for

13、variety is high and consequently volume at the individual stock keeping unit （SKU） level is low a set of characteristics which is more typical of the Western automobile industry. In other words it could be argued that many firms have been misguided in their attempts to adopt a lean model in conditio

14、ns to which is not suited.The routes to agilityTo be truly agile a supply chain must possess a number of distinguishing characteristics as Figure 2 suggests. Firstly, the agile supply chain is market sensitive. By market sensitive is meant that the supply chain is capable of reading and responding t

15、o real demand. Most organizations are forecast-driven rather than demand-driven. In other words because they have little direct feed-forward from the marketplace by way of data on actual customer requirements they are forced to make forecasts based upon past sales or shipments and convert these fore

16、casts into inventory. The breakthroughs of the last decade in the form of Efficient Consumer Response （ECR） and the use of information technology to capture data on demand direct from the point-of-sale or point-of-use are now transforming the organizations ability to hear the voice of the market and

17、 to respond directly to it.Conventional logistics systems are based upon a paradigm that seeks to identify the optimal quantities of inventory ands its spatial location. Complex formulae and algorithms exist to support this inventory-based business model. Paradoxically, what we are now learning is t

18、hat once we have visibility of demand through shared information, the premise upon which these formulae are based no longer holds. Electronic Data Interchange （EDI） and now the Internet have enabled partners in the supply chain to act upon the same data i.e. real demand, rather than be dependent upo

19、n the distorted and noisy picture that emerges when orders are transmitted from one step to another in an extended chain.Shared information between supply chain partners can only be fully leveraged through process integration. By process integration is meant collaborative working betweenbuyers and s

20、uppliers, joint product development, common systems and shared information. This form of co-operation in the supply chain is becoming ever more prevalent as companies focus on managing their core competencies and outsource all other activities. In this new world a greater reliance on suppliers and a

21、lliance partners becomes inevitable and, hence, a new style of relationship is essential. In the extended enterprise as it is often called, there can be no boundaries and an ethos of trust and commitment must prevail. Along with process integration comes joint strategy determination, buyer-supplier

22、teams, transparency of information and even open-book accounting.This idea of the supply chain as a confederation of partners linked together as a network provides the fourth ingredient of agility. There is a growing recognition that individual businesses no longer compete as stand-alone entities bu

23、t rather as supply chains. We are now entering the era of network competition where the prizes will go to those organizations who can better structure, co-ordinate and manage the relationships with their partners in a network committed to better, closer and more agile relationships with their final

24、customers. It can be argued that in todays challenging global markets, the route to sustainable advantage lies in being able to leverage the respective strengths and competencies of network partners to achieve greater responsiveness to market needs.Hybrid strategies are often appropriateThere will b

25、e occasions when either a pure agile or lean strategy might be appropriate for a supply chain. However there will often be situations where a combination of the two may be appropriate i.e. a hybrid strategy.Hybrid supply chain strategies recognize that within a mixed portfolio of products and market

26、s there will be some products where demand is stable and predictable and some where the converse is true. As Fisher has pointed out it is important that the characteristics of demand are recognized in the design of supply chains. However, it is not necessarily the case that a supply chain should be

27、either lean or agile. Instead a supply chain may need to be lean for part of the time and agile for the rest.Zara the Spanish fashion company provides a good example of this hybrid supply chain strategy.Zara is one of Spains most successful and dynamic apparel companies, producing fashionable clothi

28、ng to appeal to an international target market of 18 to 35 year-olds. Zaras international market positioning places it in direct competition with some of the most skilled operations in the business, including Italian fashion giant Benetton and US-based The Gap and The Limited. Its rapid growth and o

29、n-going success in such a fiercely competitive environment is in fact a testament to its ability to establish an agile supply chain which still incorporates many lean characteristics. The pursuit of this hybrid strategy has enabled Zara to develop one of the most effective quick-response systems in

30、its industry.The whole process of supplying goods to the stores begins with cross-functional teams - comprising fashion, commercial and retail specialists - working within Zaras Design Department at the companys headquarters in La Corona. The designs reflect the latest in international fashion trend

31、s, with inspiration gleaned through visits to fashion shows, competitors stores, university campuses, pubs, cafes and clubs, plus any other venues or events deemed to be relevant to the lifestyles of the target customers. The teams understanding of fashion trends is further guided by regular inflows

32、 of EPOS data and other information from all of the companys stores and sites around the world.Raw materials are procured through the companys buying offices in the UK, China and The Netherlands, with most of the materials themselves coming in from Mauritius, New Zealand, Australia, Morocco, China, India, Turkey, Korea, Italy and Germany. Approximately 40% of garments - those with the broadest and least transient appeal are imported as finished goods from low-cost manufacturing centers in the Far East. The rest are produced by quick-response in Spain, using Zaras own h