Wal-Mart vs. Amazon Logistics

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JUNE 25, 2013

This Wal-Mart hub sends supplies out to physical stores

This Wal-Mart hub sends supplies out to physical stores

Few have done better than Wal-Mart when it comes to retail logistics—the art of ordering, transporting, stocking and tracking merchandise, writes The Wall Street Journal (June 19, 2013).Wal-Mart pioneered a sophisticated hub-and-spoke distribution network which uses warehouses to service stores less than a day’s truck drive away so it could remove middlemen, quickly replenish shelves and reduce costs. At its distribution centers, scanning technology tracks merchandise as it flows at 6 miles per hour on 12 miles of conveyor belts onto trucks. Some items spend less than 45 minutes in warehouses.

Supply trucks crisscross the country and arrive daily at Wal-Mart’s more than 4,000 U.S. stores. Shipments are based on real-time data of shopper purchases, transmitted by the second as employees scan items at store checkouts. But with its e-commerce operations, which began in the late 1990s, Wal-Mart has been less exacting, instead relying on makeshift spaces carved out of store-serving warehouses and third-party operators to handle the load. Electronics ordered from Walmart.com are often delivered by companies like Ingram Micro which transport Apple tablets or Samsung phones to shoppers without ever going through Wal-Mart’s warehouses.

By contrast, Amazon has spent 15 years building its e-commerce network, with more than 40 U.S. warehouses within 35 miles of major cities. “As Amazon’s bets on infrastructure pay off, it can sell products at lower costs and puts even more pressure on other retailers,” says one industry expert. Wal-Mart now plans to spend roughly $430 million this year on e-commerce investments, including a logistics system tailored for Web orders. It is building distribution centers, but also will use stores as mini distribution centers. While logistics costs account for 3% of the price of an average “shopping basket” in stores, they make up 15% of the price of online orders.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

Toyota Airbag Cuts Open Doors to Global Suppliers

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JUNE 21, 2013

Cut-away of Toyota's Auris hybrid at Paris auto show

Cut-away of Toyota’s Auris hybrid at Paris auto show

Toyota has decided it no longer needs 50 kinds of airbags to protect drivers’ knees. Ten, the company says, ought to suffice. In one of Toyota’s biggest initiatives since 2009, reports Bloomberg (June 10, 2013), the carmaker is winnowing the number of parts it uses and increasing common components across models. The plan will cut both the time and cost for creating new models by as much as 30%. The automaker spent $9.6 billion in R&D last year.

In the past, Toyota focused on developing custom parts. It needed 50 types of knee-level airbags because seats for various models had different profiles. By standardizing “hip heights” across models, Toyota is reducing knee airbag variants by 80%. Last year, it had slashed radiators to 21 models from about 100. And it is reducing the number of cylinder sizes in its engines to 6 from more than 18. “From now on, Toyota will seek the compatibility of certain parts it uses with standard parts used by many automakers globally,” says the firm.

Toyota’s goal should make the company less vulnerable to supply disruptions by using parts from the largest manufacturers that can be substituted globally. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan forced Toyota to confront the complexity and risks of relying on thousands of suppliers, sub-contractors and sub-subcontractors making customized parts. The earthquake “really made us to look into our supply chain in great detail and see certain weaknesses there and look into things that needed to be fixed,” said Toyota’s spokesman.

International component makers such as Johnson Controls, Bosch GmbH and TRW Automotive are betting Toyota’s campaign will help them win contracts currently held by smaller Japanese companies. “This should mean more opportunities for global mega-suppliers with worldwide capacity and design expertise,” said one analyst.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

Jay Leno–The Advanced Manufacturer of the 21st Century

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JUNE 18, 2013

jay lenoAlmost everyone knows Jay Leno, the comedian, host of NBC’s “Tonight Show” and avid classic-car and motorcycle collector. Far fewer know Jay Leno, the advanced manufacturer, writesThe Wall Street Journal (June 11, 2013).

Leno houses his more than 200 cars and motorcycles in solar-powered warehouse like buildings near LA that span 110,000 sq. ft. In one of the structures is an expansive shop equipped with an impressive array of 21st-century machines, including a Stratasys industrial-grade 3-D printer, a NextEngine scanner, a Fadal computer-controlled mill and a (very pricey) KMT Hammerhead water jet cutter that can slice through steel. Along with a battery of more-traditional metal machining equipment, the tools allow Leno and his small crew to fabricate just about any auto part that has been produced in the past 100 years.

“The days of going to a junkyard and trying to find an auto part that says Packard or Franklin on it are over,” Leno says. “We can make almost anything we need right here in the shop ourselves.” For his 1906 Stanley Steamer, “We took the worn piece and copied it with a scanner that can measure about 50,000 points per second. That created a digital file or image of the part, which we can modify in the computer if there are imperfections or defects in the part being scanned. Then you feed that data into the 3-D printer, and, presto, you have a mold that will allow you to cast a brand new part.”

For a modest investment by virtually any industrial measure, Leno has been able to extricate himself in a meaningful way from the globe’s vast network of producers, distributors and sellers. As he puts it, “We’ve sort of gone off the grid.” He agrees that the new tools will increasingly empower other individuals and entrepreneurial ventures to make increasingly sophisticated things themselves. “Manufacturing started out with craftsmen making stuff in small cottage industries. In many ways I think we’re going to go back to that cottage-industry model.”

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.