The impact of Technology in improving productivity and cost serve in Supply Chain: Case study - Woolworths

摘要

Regardless of the segment, traditional retailers, catalogers and new "e-tailers" face an environment characterized by intense competition - too many outlets chasing too few consumers - and the need to invest heavily in information technology to reduce operating costs and improve margins and customer satisfaction. The research will look into two provinces in South Africa out of nine provinces in total. Those provinces are Gauteng and Western Cape. It will consider the economic factors and population index of those provinces as they affect the business way of operating due to the dynamics of customer demands. The utilization of technology is of vital importance to the organisation in order to improve its bottom line and gain market share (competitive advantage). Therefore, in order to achieve this, the research will look at different technologies available within the retail industry, and how best these can be utilised to gain a competitive edge. Interviews will be used to gather data together with surveys. The expectations of this research are: improved productivity realised once the right technology is implemented in a warehousing environment that will enable the business to make decisions quickly. A decision model will be developed which will enable managers within the organisation to be able to have a more holistic view of the whole value chain: supply orders placement, expected delivery date, warehouse capacity, warehouse throughput and stores (retailers) sales. This will be presented to senior management for signoff together with value-added benefits. Technology is driving customer behaviours and as such the research outcome will benefit the organisation to be able to have the right resources needed for the day, ability to know the warehouse capacity, ability to have a view of stock movements from supplier to stores, better transportation planning and vehicle fill. This will enable the organisation to supply the right product as and when needed by the customer without increase cost to serve and impacting stock availability.