Project Question:

Discuss the key problems that Medcom faces and how it can improve its operations and supply chain competitive advantage to optimise performance. Provide recommendations about how they can become more competitive using operations and supply chain management tools, approaches, and techniques. Make sure you consider the disadvantages (or negative elements) of the recommendations that you made.

There are three roles that team members must assume in this case are: (What should each role do in this case)

Sales Manager: Responsible for demand management, forecasting, and ensuring high service level for the customers.

Procurement Manager: Responsible for sourcing materials, ensuring materials are available for production, supplier selection, negotiation, and supplier evaluations.

Materials Manager: Responsible for materials planning processes, including coordination of production, inventory control, and logistics activities.

Operations Manager: Responsible for wider supply chain issues, optimisation of resources, balancing of cost and quality standards, and the interface with marketing department.

2 Scenario

2.1 Introduction

MedCom1 an Australian-based manufacturer of medical instruments that are used to treat a specefic type of medical disease. The firm was established in 1990 and is currently focused on medical devices for this particular medical condition. In 2015 earned revenues of AUD $17.3 billion and operates in over 35 countries either with its own sales offices or distributor networks. But, during last years in 2020 and 2021 its revenue was significantly decreased due to COVID-19 global pandemic( See table 1 but is was recovered in 2022. The medical condition affects up to 20% of adults to varying degrees, and so the firm anticipates that the potential market is significant. The firm believes that around 90% of sufferers of the medical disorder remain undiagnosed and are therefore untreated (and so do not demand the medical device). They have two major competitors based in the USA (which dominate the North American market, leaving MedCom with 10% market share) and one in Europe which has around 60% of the European market and 20% of the Japanese market. MedCom has around 30% of the European market and 60% of the Japanese market. Moreover, 44% of revenue is generated in Japan; Europe accounts for 26% of revenue; North America accounts for 8% of revenue; Australia accounts for 5% of revenue; and the remainder is generated globally. There are two major products, flow generators and the masks and other accessories, accounting for 58% and 42% of revenue, respectively. The markets are quite competitive in terms of the product costs, but MedCom is recognised as having been at the forefront of research in this area and has a good reputation amongst the medical facility customers. Since 2015 MedCom has deliberately sought to create the wide range of products targeted at home-users, in an attempt to capture more market share here. This intentional product proliferation has, however, put increasing pressure on manufacturing at MedCom.

Table 1: MeCom Revenue from 2009 to 2022 Year Revenue ($million) 2009 3,570 2010 4,175 2011 4,594 2012 4,527 2013 7,245 2014 7,928 2015 17,322 2016 12,906 2017 15,230 2018 15,293 2019 16,202 2020 13,102 2021 11,102 2022 15,250