Case studies

The case of Bertelsmann China: Supply Chain for Books (A) focuses on one the world's leading media companies to illustrate a widespread problem in the supply chain strategy in extremely fast growing markets. Students learn about the basic challenges of supply chain strategy in an international context. The case covers important fields of management theory. Supply chain designs well as cost and performance drivers are revised by the use of frameworks.

The case of Bertelsmann China: Supply Chain for Books (B) is situated in China in the beginning of 2006. Bertelsmann Direct Group, the Chinese subsidiary of the worldwide Bertelsmann AG, is one of the leading book retailers in the country. Supply chain management is essential for success in retailing, which is why Bertelsmann puts a lot of effort into the optimization of its supply chain design. As costs are paramount to importance in the low-margin book retailing sector, linear programming methods are applied to optimize the network

This case study addresses a number of common transportation management issues. It provides an opportunity to analyse historical freight payment data in order to reduce transportation costs and improve customer service, allowing students to utilise real freight payment data and order shipment history data to make recommendations that have strategic implications for both cost and service performance.

BP has interest in both upstream and downstream segments in over 100 countries worldwide. The United States subsidiary of BP is the nation's largest producer of oil and gas. This case focuses on the upstream procurement activities in the Gulf of Mexico.

This case study has been developed to facilitate discussion about current supply chain management issues and potential solutions. The scenario presented in this case is very representative of the pressures experienced by supply chain managers. Namely, the need to reduce costs while maintaining quality and customer service. This case presents some unusual challenges and constraints that are unique to the cruise line industry. These constraints can provide an opportunity to explore new supply chain paradigms.

This case introduces offers the concept of cash-to-cash (C2C) and extension of the concept to facilitate supply chain finance improvements between trading partners by harvesting the inherent advantages (lower WACC, lower ICC) of one trading partner to reduce cost and benefit the entire supply chain.

This case illustrates the concept of consolidation and how freight forwarders use it to reduce transportation costs. The student must compare a ship-direct model against vehicular consolidation, then consider temporal consolidation, investigate the differences between a freight broker and a freight forwarder, and develop a rate analysis for use in negotiation.

DSM Manufacturing has been around for 100 years. In that time, the company has grown considerably in size and is now a global enterprise. With the global expanse, DSM is now facing new challenges, leaving executives to determine what the next steps are in running an efficient supply chain, those that a network analysis will not necessarily address. This case illustrates DSM's process

Goodwill Industries warehousing operations has increased as the Used Merchandise Store Sales in the US has also increased to a total spending of $17 billion in 2013. Goodwill Industries faces warehousing issues as their inventory fluctuates seasonally. As people do their spring cleaning in the beginning of the year and rush to get their tax-deductible donations in by the end of the year, the warehouses are overflowed but in the off-seasons they are scarce. The following case poses the issue of an efficient warehouse operation that also supports the company sales plan.

This case focuses on supplier management through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data from a real company. In the process of solving the case, students determine and operationalize what constitutes a critical supplier, analyse the data provided, and identify the most critical suppliers.