OVERVIEW

Project: Your team is tasked with providing a recommendation to your client, Rams$4$Life Electronics, regarding a new logistics and sourcing strategy. This will include both quantitative arguments about optimal costs and service times, as well as probabilistic recommendations about optionality and risk factors.

Client: Rams$4$Life Electronics is a U$.$S$.-$based electronics company that delivers a consumer automotive product to retailers and eCommerce buyers. They have two primary product lines, radios and radar detectors, that are currently sourced out of Thailand and China, respectively.

Business Situation: Rams$4$Life management is concerned that manufacturing costs and political$/$global post$-$COVID economic $($and transportation$)$ conditions are making their Asian suppliers less viable. Also, the lease on their single warehouse is up for bid next year. The client would like to consider the impact of changing both the sourcing and distribution options for their products. Additionally, eCommerce pressure is driving their business to provide $2-$day delivery for their direct customers as well as improve their service times to OEMs, wholesalers, and retail outlets. Rams$4$Life is concerned that long lead$-$times from overseas providers are causing disruptions to their flow of product, as evidenced by recent delays they have had on inbound shipments.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

All teams will prepare a $3-$page write up$,$ as well as a $6-$minute presentation, where they will reveal their recommendations for how Rams$4$Life Electronics should move forward to source and deliver their product. Your presentation should be scripted to the Vice President of Supply Chain and address their need to know what to do next. This recommendation will include:

$1.$ Sourcing recommendations

$2.$ Distribution location recommendations

$3.$ Overall proposed network including anticipated costs and service times to customers

$4.$ Risk and optionality considerations for your proposed solution.

a$.$ Risks to consider: Weather and other potential traffic disruptions. You may include geopolitical lists such as risk of tariffs. It is highly recommended to create an impact $/$ likelihood matrix or heatmap to help your team identify the various risks that could affect this solution.

b$.$ Optionality to consider: What if demand goes up$/$goes down$$is the network well poised to add or drop a distribution point. Identify other optionality factors.

c$.$ Make sure to tie all of this into your final recommendation. How did these affect your choices?

$5.$ Optional to include: impact of your solution on sustainability.

Your team$$s proposal should be supported with both quantitative arguments about the costs and lead$-$times involved as well as qualitative insight into what would create the best set of options to allow for demand change, risk factors that can include geopolitical factors $($discuss some current events here$)$ and risks to transportation.

PROJECT INPUTS

Demand Data $($provided XLS file$)$: Your team will be provided $12$ months of data with shipments to each customer. Demand has been flat so this will serve as a proxy for future demand