Reference no: EM133539235
Decathlon is a sports products company with a belief that the best quality at the lowest possible price, should be accessible to everyone. It has Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines as its regional markets in ASEAN. Along with selling other brands, it manufactures own products to fulfil the annual demand in these regional markets. It is planning for supply chain network design in ASEAN and identified five potential sites (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore) as manufacturing plants with enough capacity to ship its products to the regional markets.
Answer the following questions relating to Decathlon's planning for supply chain network design.
(a) Debate on the factors that influence the supply chain network design decisions related to Decathlon's supply chain planning in ASEAN.
Your answer should link Decathlon's supply chain network design decisions to the specifics of its supply chain operations and product shipments. Provide examples from Decathlon's business and references from different sources to support your statements.
(b) Infer the decision variables, objective function equation, and constraints equations in the linear programming optimisation for aggregate planning of Decathlon's supply chain network.
Your answer should identify the decision variables for aggregate planning of Decathlon's supply chain network and deduce objective function equation, and constraints equations in the linear programming optimisation.
Note: There is no need to solve the aggregate planning problem using linear programming optimisation.
(c) Illustrate, in your own words, how Decathlon can handle predictable variability in its supply chain by implementing the following approaches.
(i) Manage supply using manufacturing capacity and inventory
(ii) Manage demand using price discounts and trade promotions
Your answer should discuss the challenges of predictable variability for Decathlon's supply chain and explain the implementation of manage supply and demand approaches to mitigate these challenges. Provide examples from Decathlon's business and references from different sources to support your statements.