Bottlenecks in the Process

Bottlenecks in a Process

The country that was chosen to supply the rolling transmitter for the wireless key fob is Japan. Japan has experienced tremendous success within this industry and the automotive industry as a whole due to its inter-corporate alliances and networks within the Japanese and global economic system. Japan has also concentrated on their supply chain management process by cooperating with their customers and suppliers within the markets.
There are many significant issues that can create bottlenecks in the supply chain of Japan. A bottleneck is the one thing that will take the longest operational time to work out which determines the throughput of the supply chain. The most identifiable bottleneck in the supply chain of Japan is the recent occurrence of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Derived from this bottleneck, sub-bottlenecks have occurred such as transportation and shipping issues, labor availability, and production. As a collective, the global supply chain was threatened to be broken. Japan is a critical source of electronic parts, such as rolling transmitters, and the 8.9 magnitude earthquake caused a total shutdown in production across most of Japan’s industries. Although many of the production plants for key chips were far removed from the epicenter of the earthquake, the transportation of materials, the shipment of product and the available labor were affected. (WardsAuto.com)
In a bottleneck such as this – one caused by a natural disaster - advanced knowledge would not have prevented the effects on the supply chain. In minimizing the effects, it is necessary for the supplier and the organization to have a contingency plan set in place that can become effective after the damage. To change suppliers is not necessarily a preventative measure in case of further damaging events, but it is believed having a back-up supplier is always a necessary option while the primary supplier recovers. A contingency plan of assessing the...