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Supply Chain and Location Planning: Mexico or Texas for production, distribution, NAW

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Please review the attached for assistance with supply chain and location planning.

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Construct an "analysis of the division's operations and produce a plan to improve operations with an eye for reducing costs."
Summarize recommendations in a paper. Include thoughts on the "laundry list" below.

1. Should production remain in Mexico or be brought back to the US?
a. If so, where would you recommend?
b. Should only part of the production be brought back to the US?
c. Should production be shifted to Asia (China)?

2. Should the product distribution network be changed?
a. Production in Mexico, central warehouse (NAW) in St. Louis, regional distribution centers in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Colorado, California
b. Close NAW, ship from Mexico directly to regional distribution centers listed in letter "a" above
c. Close NAW, create a new central warehouse in Texas near the Mexico plant, ship to regional distribution centers in letter "a" above (with a distribution center in St. Louis/Chicago region)
d. Close NAW, create a new central warehouse in Texas near the Mexico plant, ship directly to customers.
e. Hire a professional distribution company to handle distribution.

3. Should the St. Louis Customer Service staff be decentralized to the regional distribution centers listed above?

4. Can the sales forecast process be improved? If so, how?

SCENARIO: https://brainmass.com/business/business-policy/52637

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Solution Summary

In a 1,015 word solution, the response clearly defines and discusses each problem. First is an explanation regarding production and if it should move to a different country or if changes should be made to the production distribution network. Following this is a discussion regarding decentralizing staff to regional distribution centers and improving the process of sales forecasting.

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1. Should production remain in Mexico or be brought back to the US?
a. If so, where would you recommend?
b. Should only part of the production be brought back to the US?
c. Should production be shifted to Asia (China)?

The production at Mexico can remain there provided there is improved communication between the headquarters and the Mexican facility. Bringing the facility to the US would be ideal provided the cost is not too high and the company can afford the cost. The internal supply chain seems to be tardy and unwieldy there seems to be no reason why one facility should be located at Cape Girardeau, another at Mexico and the warehouse at St. Louis. The new facility at Mexico seems to be languishing in responding to orders and there seems to be a time lag between shipping the goods from the manufacturing facilities to NAW. Ideally the storage facility should be located at the same place where the goods are manufactured and every attempt should be made to ship the goods the moment they are manufactured. We cannot say how effective the current computerization is, however, if the manufacturing representatives, distributors and final customers are allowed to book orders, then the manufacturing can start the moment orders are booked, in case of made to stock items, the shipping process can start the moment the orders are booked and this will reduce response time leading to greater customer satisfaction. It seems that there is a communication gap with the Mexico plant; this gap will be reduced if there are online bookings. ...

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