Supply chain management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Supply chain management - Essay Example Moreover, the research also addresses other fundamental concepts such as the procedures which precede the decision to invest in capital equipment and required services, whether to undertake measures that are associated with strategic outsourcing and an explanation of the legal issues and local and international contract disputes which are faced by the company. History and Background of the Organization Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) was founded in 1939 by Stanford University students Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (Hewlett-Packard 2013). Since, its inception in a Palto Alto garage the primary objective of the business was built on the foundations of promoting a distinct within the industry. According to Hewlett-Packard (2013), the first product that was built by engineers, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard was an audio oscillator which provides assistance to sound engineers. Eight samples of the company’s first ever creation were bought by Walt Disney Studios for their project, Fanta sia. The product line by HP broadly includes Personal Computer systems (PC’s), printing & imaging (inkjet and printing), and enterprise services (software & services, and accessories & networking) (Hewlett-Packard 2013). The company sells high quality laptops, desktop computers, tablets, monitors, servers, storage systems, handheld devices, printers, toners, ink, softwares, and networking accessories. Among its services are consultation, outsourcing, infrastructure, applications and other technological services (Reuters n.d.). The Organization’s Supply Chain Management Efforts According to the International Business Blog, HP organizes its company based on product departmentalization (McEntee 2010). That is, it has three main product departments including Personal Computer systems, printing and imaging, and enterprise services. The organization chart for HP found on the Cogmap website shows Leo Apotheke as the CEO, president and Chairman of the HP company with nine Exec utive Vice Presidents (EVP’s) below it handling the different departments including technology solutions group, human resources, imaging and printing, personal systems group, and so on (2013). Below the EVP’s are the SVP’s (Senior Vice Presidents) after which come the VP’s (Vice Presidents) and then the GM’s (General Managers). Charlie McMurty is the SVP for supply chain and Randy Salley is the SVP for Information Technology (IT) and supply chain systems. To deal with supply chain issues after facing rising inventory and customer dissatisfaction in the late 1980s, HP called an internal consulting group known as SPaM (Strategic Planning and Modeling) consisting of industrial engineers and management scientists to solve problems regarding supply chain (Lee & Billington 1995). The supply chain of HP’s computational and other products included the production of integrated circuits, board assembly, final assembly and delivery. The initiative of i mproving supply chain issues was first started by the 1990 CEO of HP, John Young (Lee & Billington 1995). The company had a very diverse product line and therefore inefficiencies could occur anywhere along the chain. The first step was the identification of the problem. The shipment of supplies could be delayed or the supplies could be