The Milk Chain Essay Example for Free

The Milk Chain Essay Malawi Dairybord is a home for dairy products. Rogers has run the dairy for the past twelve years. His product is a combination of goods the items he delivers and services the delivery and associated jobs he does for customers. At the heart of operations is an information system which contains full details of all of Rogers’s 1000 plus customers, including their regular orders, special orders, where to deliver, how they pay and so on. Everyday the system calculates the likely sales of all products in two days time. Rogers adds some margin of safety allows for likely variations and passes his order to Unidairy some 150km away. Unidairy acts as a wholesaler for milkmen in Bvumbwe and surrounding areas. The following evening Unidairy delivers to a holding depot in Limbe and then takes Roger’s goods 10km to a cold store in Njuli. At 5. 30am the following morning Roger collects the order from his cold store and starts delivering to customers. This normally takes until 1. 30 in the afternoon but on Fridays he spends more time collecting money and often finishes after 5. 0pm There are several specific problems facing Malawi Dairybord. There is for example some variation in daily demand so Roger has to carry spare stock. He cannot carry too much as dairy products have a short life and anything not delivered is thrown away. Roger aims at keeping this waste down to 2% of sales. There are also problems maintaining a service during holidays, or when Unidairy has difficulties with their deliveries. Perhaps Roger’s main concern is maintaining his sales over the long term. Demand for doorstep deliveries is declining as people buy more milk at supermarkets. The number of milkmen in Bvumbwe has declined from ten in 1997 to three in 2012. Most of Roger’s customers have been with him for many years but he generates new custom delivering leaflets, special offers and carrying a range of products. Case study questions Describe the supply chain for milk Where does Malawi Dairybord fit into this? What specific activities form the logistics in Malawi Dairybord. Draw the supply chain network What are the main problems that Malawi Dairybord has with logistics?