The World is Flat: Flatteners 7 & 8 questions
1. Wal-Mart is the world's biggest retailer. No company has been as efficient as Wal-Mart at improving its supply chain. Wal-Mart built an inventory and supply chain management system that changed the face of business. By investing early and heavily in cutting-edge technology to identify and track sales of individual items, Wal-Mart made its IT infrastructure a key competitive advantage that has been studied and copied around the world.
2. In the Wal-Mart distribution centers, employees drive special minilift trucks with headphones on. A computer tracks how many pallets each employee is plucking every hour to put onto trucks for different stores, and a computerized voice tells each of them whether they are ahead of schedule or behind schedule. They have a large-scale satellite system linking all the stores to company headquarters, giving Wal-Mart's central computer system real-time inventory data. Wal-Mart also uses RFIDs. Wal-Mart reached out to the Hispanic population by offering them payroll check cashing, money orders, money transfers, and bill payment services.
3. The store in Japan has put in wide aisles, numerous household goods, and huge signs displaying the lowest prices in each category. The store also uses the Wal-Mart supply-chain computer system so that store managers can quickly adjust stock. Wal-Mart has made the store realize that they do not sell cheap products for low prices, but instead they sell quality products at low prices.
4. "Insourcing" means that the small companies can act like big companies. They small companies could see a many places where they could sell their goods, manufacture their goods, or buy their raw materials in a more efficient way.
5. If you are a small business or individual working at home, you can plug into UPS and have it become your global supply-chain manager. Big corporations can get their packages delivered or goods repaired quickly anywhere in the world by using UPS. UPS is helping to level customs barriers and harmonize trade by getting more people to adopt the same rules and labels and tracking systems for transporting goods.
2. In the Wal-Mart distribution centers, employees drive special minilift trucks with headphones on. A computer tracks how many pallets each employee is plucking every hour to put onto trucks for different stores, and a computerized voice tells each of them whether they are ahead of schedule or behind schedule. They have a large-scale satellite system linking all the stores to company headquarters, giving Wal-Mart's central computer system real-time inventory data. Wal-Mart also uses RFIDs. Wal-Mart reached out to the Hispanic population by offering them payroll check cashing, money orders, money transfers, and bill payment services.
3. The store in Japan has put in wide aisles, numerous household goods, and huge signs displaying the lowest prices in each category. The store also uses the Wal-Mart supply-chain computer system so that store managers can quickly adjust stock. Wal-Mart has made the store realize that they do not sell cheap products for low prices, but instead they sell quality products at low prices.
4. "Insourcing" means that the small companies can act like big companies. They small companies could see a many places where they could sell their goods, manufacture their goods, or buy their raw materials in a more efficient way.
5. If you are a small business or individual working at home, you can plug into UPS and have it become your global supply-chain manager. Big corporations can get their packages delivered or goods repaired quickly anywhere in the world by using UPS. UPS is helping to level customs barriers and harmonize trade by getting more people to adopt the same rules and labels and tracking systems for transporting goods.
posted by Emily @ 7:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home