Case Study: Supply chain whirl While the 2001 global overhaul of Whirlpool's supply chain systems remains a work in progress today, managers say its success to date is encouraging the remaining systems work. The supply chain at Whirlpool in 2000 was broken. Indeed, a manager there at the time quipped that among the four major appliance makers in the U.S., Whirlpool ranked fifth in delivery performance. "We had too much inventory, too little inventory, wrong inventory, right inventory/wrong place, any combination of those things," says J.B. Hoyt, who was then supply chain project director. He says a sales vice president approached him one day and said he'd accept even worse performance from supply systems if they would just be consistent rather than wildly bouncing back and forth between good and poor production and shipping plans. So in 2001, Whirlpool embarked on a multiproject global overhaul of its supply chain systems. The meta project remains a work in progress today, with a number of systems yet to be rolled out and some major technical issues to be resolved. But managers at Whirlpool say its success to date -- including huge improvements in customer service and reduced supply chain costs -- is providing the psychological and financial impetus to drive the remaining systems work. Source: Anthes, G.H. (2015)

1. In order to understand Whirlpools supply chain information needs, discuss the purpose, characteristics and key performance dimensions for information flows for the following supply chain activities: Strategic decision making Tactical planning Routine decision making Execution and transaction processing (20)

2. Discuss, using examples, the difference between CRM and SRM applications. (5)