Chapter
Supply-Chain Management
Discussion Questions
1. Supply-chain management is the management of the activities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and final products, and deliver the products to customers through a distribution system.
2. The supply-chain function’s role is to help identify the products and services that can best be obtained externally; develop, evaluate, and determine the best supplier, price, and delivery for them.
3. The objective of logistics is to obtain efficiency of operations through the integration of all material acquisition, movement, and storage activities in the firm.
4. Table 11.3 identifies types of supply-chain risk:
Supplier failure
Logistics and distribution
— Some cultures (such as America) encourage teenagers to work even to the detriment of schoolwork.
— Some cultures (such as Germany) think teenagers should be in school or training and not in the regular workforce.
 This case brings up broader issues regarding any sort of standards of conduct (e.g., labor, safety, environmental) that a firm attempts to implement worldwide: What should the standards include, how should they be enforced, etc.?
End-of-Chapter Problems
11.1 This problem provides a good way to (1) get students involved with the real world, (2) have them interact with members of the existing workforce, and (3) get them to take a relatively detailed look at supply chains and their relation to corporate strategy. You might consider having students study different stores (Sears, Pizza Hut, and Benetton, for example) in different industries and then compare the results in a class session.
11.2 Students should identify a number of problems from simple communication, through product valuation, to the selection of virtual partners. In most cases, similar problems existed in the single-site operation, but operating in a virtual world has at least modified the characteristics of the problem and the environment within which one must work to develop a solution.

11.3

11.5
Baker Mfg.