Question 1 (Operations and Supply Chain Analysis, 24 marks) (a) The Walmart retail chain sells standardized items and enjoys great purchasing clout with its suppliers, none of which it owns. The Limited retail chain sells fashion goods and owns Mast Industries, which is responsible for producing many of the items sold in The Limited stores. The Limited boasts that it can go from the concept for a new garment to the store shelf in 1,000 hours. Compare and contrast the implications for supply chain design for these two retail systems 10 marks (b) Canon, a Japanese manufacturer of photographic equipment, decided against offshoring and kept its manufacturing and new product development processes in Japan, which has relatively high labor costs. In contrast, GM, headquartered in the United States, has a joint venture with Shanghai Auto Industry Corporation (SAIC) to produce cars in China. Given the discussion of outsourcing and supply chain design, discuss how these two seemingly diverse decisions could be supportive of each company's operations strategy