1. Assignment Questions

You are appointed as the Supply Chain Director at the company Siyabonga.  This company specializes in providing the textbooks, electronic XPads, writing books and stationery to all the model C schools in KwaZulu Natal.

The Board of Directors of Siyabonga mandated you to ensure the company provides a reliable and cost-effective service to their only client, which is the Schooling Department of the government. At the moment Siyabonga is performing well below the contracted standards, the Schooling Department has given the company 12 months to put corrective measures in place to get to the expected standard, if not the contract will be cancelled due to performance non-compliance.

When you started at the company, you struggled to find information regarding the current performance, and therefore could not provide the required leadership and strategy for the company’s turnaround strategy.  You have decided to implement a Performance Management system as a matter of urgency. This will enable you to understand the scope, extent of the companies services as well as current performance, and understand the targets that were set.

Your team consists of 3 buyers and 15 warehouse personnel. You have five delivery vehicles and drivers and one financial controller. To be in a competitive position with their competitors which is at the top end of sophistication in their execution, this organization should be positioned to be in an advantageous position. The organization to date has not adopted Supply Chain principles and practices, and these concepts are foreign to the organization. Ensure that the required explanation and definition of concepts that you will use is adequate for the audience to understand, and also ensure you provide relevant examples in all cases to ensure everyone is on the equal page of understanding how these principles will materialize in their organization.

Compile a summary to the Board addressing the following aspects in implementing a performance management system to drive Siyabonga’s turnaround strategy: Use the outline below to structure your report.

1.  Introduction:

• Give an explanation of why performance management is important for the turn-around strategy, and illustrate the reasons for the current environment is not performing due to the absence of such a system
• What you will do to address and overcome the challenges of implementing the performance management system
• Assumptions made, you must make your assumptions where needed, ensure you document it in this section

2.  Analysis of Current Environment:

• Measure and define the current level of business maturity and define a specific plan for this organization to progress to the highest level of sophistication. Identify what you are practically going to do to improve the maturity level with applicable specifics to the Siabonga business context.
• Measure the effectiveness of Siyabonga current environment in terms of the Performance Management Cycle. Define the approach you will follow and identify what the specific results from your assessment are for Siyabonga’s environment.
• Use the Lean Six Sigma categories of performance measures, define the specific areas in the Siyabonga Company that are ineffective, and describe what the specific implications to this business are.

3.  Planned improvement:

a.  Provide specific Siyabonga examples of what the measurements will be for the performance measurement classes for the following processes in the supply chain:

• Planning
• Warehousing
• Distribution

4.  Conclusion:

• Propose the 20% initiatives to execute in the performance improvement programme that will have 80% of the impact to include in the turn-around strategy for Siyabonga. Specific initiatives in this particular business.
• Indicate if you are confident that you will ensure Siyabonga will be a highly competitive company and be performing according to expected standards.