Short Case Report Example

1. Problems

• Polaroid has 10 warehouse and 1 central distribution center in Europe.
• Many disparate supply chain systems/metrics exist in European subsidiaries.
• Tom Carroll, Director of International Distribution and Customer Service, had repeatedly tried to convince the company to centralize inventory stocks in Europe.
• This plan was strongly opposed by a number of managers in Europe, although it has been agreed and supported by corporate management.
• No detailed plan has been established yet about the sequence in which warehouse should be eliminated and inventories consolidated.

1. Recommendations

• Use computerized over all distribution center.
• Build a direct distribution center and upgrade Enschede DC (central DC) facilities, eliminate subsidy regional warehouse.
• Enhance utilization of new systems, such as new communication system and computerized order management system, in order to realize the standardization across each subsidiary.

1. Supporting rationale

• Total cost and investment of build a new direct DC and enlarge current central DC are not very high.
• Use direct DC could:  

1. Decrease in stock-outs and back orders
2. Increase in delivery reliability
3. Decrease in packaging costs
4. Packaging standardization
5. Increase in customer service level
6. Decrease in transportation costs

• ROI in use direct DC is high.

1. Tools

• Cost and ROI analysis
• Service level analysis
• Risk management analysis
• SWOT analysis

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