Independent University, Bangladesh

Course Title: Introduction to Product and Operation Management

Course ID: MGT330
Summer 2021

Semester Project on Wall-mart Supply Chain Management

Submitted To:
Prof. Dr. Md. Mamun Habib
Professor
Department of Management,
School of Business Administration

Independent University, Bangladesh

Submitted By:
Iftekhar Hossen Taslim
ID: 1731061
Yousuf Abdullah
ID: 1821712
Ahmed Ausaf Rashik
ID: 1731544
Avishake Saha
ID: 1921232

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23 August 2021
Prof. Dr. Md. Mamun Habib,
Professor
School of Business
Independent University, Bangladesh
Bashundhara R/A, Dhaka.
Subject: Submission of semester project about Wall-mart supply chain management.
Dear Sir,
It is indeed a great pleasure for us to be able to hand over the result of our hardship of the MGT- 330
reports of the supply chain Management on Wall-Mart. This semester project is the result of the
knowledge which has been acquired from the respective course and perceptive knowledge. We tried our
level best for preparing this report. Thank you for your supportive consideration for formulating an idea.
Without your inspiration, this report would have been an incomplete one. The information of this report
is mainly based on the article found on the internet. All of us gave our level best for making this report
come together.
We, fervently hope that you will find this analysis worth reading. Please feel free for any query or
clarification that you would like us to explain. Hope you will appreciate our hard work and excuse the
minor errors. Thanking you for your cooperation.
Your sincerely,
Iftekhar Hossain Taslim
Ahmed Ausaf Rashik
Avishake Saha
Yousuf Abdullah

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Executive Summary
The case delves into Wal-supply Mart's chain management practices and explains how the company
used information technology (IT) and the Internet to improve the efficiency of each supply chain
function, including procurement, warehouse and logistics management, inventory management, and
demand forecasting. The case focuses on EDI, voice-based tools and apps, and the Retail Link system,
as well as some of the company's key technologies and their benefits.
The case investigates Wal-supply Mart's chain management procedures, as the world's largest retailer.
The study delves into how Wal-Mart handled various supply chain components such as sourcing,
distribution, logistics, and inventory management. It discusses how the organization has improved
supply chain efficiency through the use of modern IT solutions. The argument comes to a close with a
discussion of the benefits that Wal-Mart has enjoyed as a result of its efficient and successful supply
chain management system.
Wal-use Mart's of Internet-based technology in adopting collaborative planning, forecasting, and
replenishment (CPFR), global sourcing, and EDI-INT is also examined in the case. Finally, the case
discusses Wal-aspirations Mart's to integrate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, its
benefits, and the challenges that suppliers are encountering in doing so.
The literature on supply chain and supply chain management is included in this paper. The study covers
the many objectives and assessments of supply chain management. The backbone of supply chain
management is made up of a number of components. With the support of retail behemoth "Wal-Mart,"
efforts are being undertaken to investigate these dimensions. The report also covers the evolution of
Wal-Mart with Supply chain management technology at its behest. Efforts have been made to
comprehend the various procedures employed by Wal-Mart in its supply chain management.

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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Case Study ........................................................................................................................................................................ 6
Analysis/findings/discussions......................................................................................................................................... 10
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................................... 11

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Introduction
Walmart Inc was established in 1962 by Sam Walton. It is the world's most beneficial retail outlet, and
furthermore the largest employer in the US, with more than 1,000,000 employees and thousands of
stores worldwide. The primary Walmart opened its entryways in 1962 in Rogers (Benton Province). All
through the 1960s, the organization opened new stores, focusing at first on provincial towns in which
another Walmart would frequently turn into a community’s central retail outlet. After that till now,
working from 15 nations through supply chain management, Walmart Inc and their association develops
and accomplishes the situation with being the world's biggest retailer organization. Indeed, even the case
that different sales organizations are replicating their techniques in retail and store network, for example,
sharing information from with providers, organization RFID and self-dispersion bar with inner transit
and completely advanced retail location to oversee stock levels.
During the time spent supply chain management, there are sure capacities that are to be centered on the
buying of the items from the providers and discount sellers. At the point when the item is fit to be sold
anytime of offer, it's the retail procedure ought to be formed as at these stores, the items are to be sold
for the most part at the bulk level. Walmart is extremely well known for deploying Just-in-Time process
in their supply chain management that decreases a great deal of excess expenses by loading the greater
part of not-required items. In distribution which requires a proficient permitting to diminish costs and to
utilize public vehicle modes at the most minimal expense. At the point when the item is fit to be sold in
which outlet, its sales strategy should be defined on the grounds that in these stores the items are sold
mainly in bulk. The retail system incorporates everything from the level of the logistics to the store level
assists with lessening operating costs. Walmart is extremely popular for having deployed a cycle in the
administration of its supply chain, which significantly overabundance costs by putting away the greater
part of unnecessary items.

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Case Study

Wal-Mart Supply Chain Management

Hassan Natto
Abstract: A retail store network founded by Sam Walton is operating at 6500 locations globally with the support of 1.8 million employees. The main strategy
of Wal-Mart is the provision of best quality of merchandise and services at lowest affordable prices for consumers. Their everyday low prices (EDLP)
technique is used over all discount stores especially of apparel, small appliances, housewares, electronics, even hardware and majorly at grocery stores.
Wal-Mart also has a lot of competitors located in every category of stores.

——————————  ——————————
Introduction
Wal-Mart is the largest retailer operating from 15 countries and
according to them, Supply Chain management is the main source
through which their organization grows and achieves this status.

Even they claim that other retailing organizations are copying their Supply Chain Description
strategies in retail and supply chain like shared sales data with
suppliers, deployment of RFIDS and bar codes, enabled self- When Sam Walton started establishing the chain of Wal-Mart Stores
distribution with in-house transit and fully digital point of sales to back in 1962, he possessed an efficacious chain of stores under the Ben
manage the inventory levels. In the process of supply chain Franklin Stores flag, a franchisor of mixture stores in the United States.
management there are certain functions that are to be focused like the In spite of the fact that he was under contract to buy the vast majority
purchasing of the products from the suppliers and wholesale dealers. of his stock prerequisites from Ben Franklin Stores, Walton was fit to
The next phase is of distribution which requires an efficient strategy specifically buy stock in mass from revamped suppliers and after that
through which costs could be reduced and to use best transit modes at transport the aforementioned merchandise to his stores
least cost. straightforwardly (Andel, 1995).

When the product is ready to be sold at any point of sale, its retail Whenever Walton acknowledged that another drift, rebate retailing—
strategy should be formulated as at these stores, the products are to be dependent upon driving towering volumes of item through ease retail
sold mostly at bulk level. The retail strategy comprises of all operations outlets—was clearing the country, he chose to open up huge,
from the level of logistics to store level and assists in reducing the warehouse-style saves keeping in mind the end goal to contend. To
operating costs. Wal-Mart is very famous for deploying Just-in Time stock his revamped warehouse-style stores, at first named “Wal-Mart
process in their supply chain management that reduces a lot surplus Discount City,” Walton would have done well to step up his stock
costs by stocking bulk of not required products. Using the immensely acquisition exertions. As none of the suppliers were eager to send their
strategic and intellectual supply chain processing system, Wal-Mart trucks to his stores, which were spotted in provincial Arkansas, in such
has managed to achieve a significant share within the US stock market circumstance, the self-distribution was the only way out.
that can be viewed in the progressive manner in following figure.1 As Wal-Mart developed in the 1960s to 1980s, it started extracting the
advantages from better transportation facilities and the failure of it is
contenders to respond to updates in enactment, for example the
evacuation of resale value upkeep, which had averted retailers from
marking down stock (Andel, 1995).

Following are some of the important entities that developed within the
Wal-Mart supply chain as it started progressing and developing (Barry,
2006).
Purchasing Power and Capability
As the purchasing power of Walton expanded in scale, Walton and his
senior administration crew could travel to establish new offices in New
York City, removing the role of the mid- agents or the wholesale

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1.http://www.scdigest.com/ASSETS/FIRSTTHOUGHTS/12-07-

26.php?cid=6047
 dealers. Wal-Mart's U.S. purchasers, supplier's out-of-stock rate and stock levels at Wal-Mart, evidences of
how well recharging was being took care of. Suppliers were furnished
found in Bentonville, went with suppliers to guarantee that the right
with focuses for out-of-stock rates and stock levels.
intermingles of staples and unique things were requested.
Company Supply Chain Strategy
As time passes, a large number of Wal-Mart's most vast suppliers had
business settings in Bentonville, staffed by investigators and According to the coverage of a recent event, it was announced by the
administrators supporting Wal-Mart's business. Still having the same management of Wal-Mart to their suppliers that they can audit and
mechanism, Wal-Mart is often viewed and perceived as a negative disclose the costs of their products, in other words Wal-Mart invited
entity for the suppliers, yet 100,000 corporates globally to audit and evaluate their environmental
and social strengths which could lead the relevant businesses to
decrease their wastage after the evaluation and improvise their returns.
its effective strategy has enabled them to harvest significant profit. The corporate critics who always keep evaluating the strategies of Wal-
Distribution Mart praised the management of Wal-Mart for this act but they knew
that Wal-Mart has a wider goal behind this plan. Wal-Mart designs to
Wal-Mart's 75,000-employee logistics division and it is informative consolidate information on water usage, environmental friendly gas
data frameworks division incorporated the most substantial private discharges, strong waste grounding, and worker morals into a database
truck armada worker base of any solid 7,800 drivers, who conveyed the imparted worldwide, which the group stated might be utilized to shape
dominant part of stock sold at saves. Wal-Mart's 114 U.S. the first file of a feature's essence cycle sway.
dissemination centers, placed all through the United States, were an
intermingle of general stock, nourishment and delicate products
circulation centers, handling over five billion cases a year through it is
whole grid.

Strategic Approach for Retailing According to Wal-Mart "Our goal is not to create our own index, but to
spur the development of a common database that can be used globally,
As the distribution centers of Wal-Mart had been closer to real time a standard for all of us in the future to rely on," said Mike Duke,
information processing units of each store; the merchandise can be president and chief executive officer of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., at a
placed within the stores automatically. Similarly, the information meeting of employees, suppliers, academics, and environmentalists on
systems at the store level, permitted makers to be informed whenever Thursday at the company's corporate headquarters in Bentonville,
a thing was obtained. In foresight of modifications popular for certain Arkansas. "Customers want and will expect retailers to have greater
things, cohorts had the power to manually include requests or override transparency in the future. This is going to accelerate. We might as well
looming conveyances. get used to it." 2 It is under the planning of Wal- Mart that Lifecycle
Assessments (LCAs) would be responsible for the provision of
Conversely, a large portion of Wal-Mart's retail contestants did not
information regarding labeling found on the product.
give marketing obligation to passage-level representatives as
promoting templates were sent to stores through head office and were Other than this Wal-Mart facilitates their customers in relevance to
wanted to be emulated correctly. To guarantee that workers were some categories of products that they can evaluate that information by
maintained, administration imparted in-depth information systems scanning them on the PDAs and evaluate the given content on the
about day/week/month save bargains with all representatives packaging. Promoting this plan, Wal- Mart states that "A consumer will
throughout every day in an informal meeting of about few minutes. be able to see the cotton farm, maybe even the farmer who raised the
Information Systems cotton," said John Fleming, the company's chief merchandising officer.
"The consumer of the future will be able to see, whether from the sea
In contrast to this management endeavor, the analysts assessed the or the ground, where that product came from." 3
Wal-Mart's inventory network force to co-ordinate the stream of
features from suppliers' industrial facilities and determined any store The feedback that was received for this category of products was very
network issues, from schedule issues for example, guaranteeing that positive but it also gave that information to customers that were even
items were available for pickup by Wal-Mart's trucks, and ethical from environmental point of
orchestrating the profit of damaged

items, to final-moment issues for example, maintaining sudden

spikes popular for famous things. Whenever Wal-Mart purchasers met,
3. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6200
on an often premise, with a supplier's deals groups, two paramount
themes of assessment were the

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 view but somehow sales were reduced for some of the products and for
that case Wal-Mart was held responsible.

On the other hand Wal-Mart was just focusing on the value that they
were providing to their customers, according to an individual from
Wal-Mart, "As you look through the details, there is so much hidden
cost, so much inefficiency," Duke said. "A lot of this can help us be
more productive, to lower costs, to give the customer better quality,
and to live in a more sustainable world." 4
Company Supply Chain Effectiveness
Wal-Mart has become the largest retailer with the most rapid expansion
in their discount provision network and all of this has happened through
proceeding in reducing the surplus costs in all their operations and
inhibiting the marginal expansions. All this has resulted in to an
increase in their net income by 25% that has been now $1.6 billion and
Future Work and Discussion
18% market share is possessed by the discount department of their
network. Wal-Mart has been always stronger than its competitors as it Wal-Mart has a firm belief that they could progress only by developing
has bonded the most powerful relation with every kind of suppliers, long-term relationship with their suppliers so information sharing
though their always customizing operations and giving a spacious could be more credible and easy. Other than these routes in transit
platform to brands to market system are designed very efficiently and their vehicles are integrated
with special navigational devices that keep their transportation system
in record.
their branding and by consolidating with the industry on individual Now some weaknesses were also observed in their operating cycle,
level. discussing them could be utilized as for recommendations for their
supply chain process. Wal-Mart deploys a system in which distribution
Wal-Mart also looks after the demands of their customers; this also warehouse is linked directly to the shipment party; along this the
keeps an efficiency level in their stocks and let the suppliers know individual warehouse is also linked to the shipment party. It increases
about the sales of their products on run-time. After an overall research the operational costs as one shipment is linked to the distribution
it could be said that, Wal-Mart is able to lead the market of retail warehouse and when the order is received, it is selected and again
business by possessing some qualities or strengths as compared to packed and again then shipped individually to their stores location.
others. These strengths are that, the supply chain dept. (Barry, 2006). This process increases the time and costs of the transit. In this process
of Wal-Mart keeps track of the demand of each product, tracking their at distribution level the storage was also evaluated the storage levels or
movement from other stores too which defines which region requires orders quantity of that specific product.
which sort of product in which amount, by the deployment of a very
effective information system that secures all sort of transits and This whole process should be reengineered, time frame should be
transactions, not only this but also analyses the sales, trend of defined and the distribution center and the individual store for every
customers in reference to market information and also by becoming a product should be cross docked on a specific time frame of 2 days in
middle party between the distributors and the wholesale dealers. The contact with the shipment independently within the both platforms so
growth and tremendous progress of Wal-Mart can be observed from cost and time could be saved, this would create a good communication
the following growth chart.5 channel of the retailer with the manufacturer directly as the shipment
would not be then delayed by the manufacturer as they are already
aware of the demand at the point of sale, their distribution would be
independent from the Wal-Mart and would reach more efficiently at
the individual store.
Other than this the Quick Response system of Wal-Mart is effective
but with the deployment of latest technological equipment all system
involved in this program could communicate with each other to reduce
lying issues and the common factor in all three systems; Vendor
managed QR, Just- in Time System and Wal-Mart managed QR is the
5. http://www.scdigest.com/ASSETS/FIRSTTHOUGHTS/12-07-
26.php?cid=6047
role of

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supplier and this could be made more effective if the supplier is aware certain techniques and by letting the employees even know about the
of the inventory and sales so could increase their provisioning of the in-depth information about the customer’s trend and demands
products from the vendors. Last but not the least, this all could take
place if the Human resource of Wal- Mart could cooperate with all
these strategies and by keeping the employees involved in their tasks
by motivating them by

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References

Andel, T., “Partnerships With Pull,” Transportation and Distribution,

July 1995, pp. 65-74. Barry C. Lynn, “Breaking the chain,” Harper’s

Magazine, July 2006, page 33.

Analysis/findings/discussions

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer operating from 15 countries and according to them, Supply
Chain management is the main source through which their organization grows and achieves
this status. Other retailers are replicating their retail and supply chain techniques, such as
sharing sales data with suppliers, deploying RFIDs and bar codes, and enabling online
shopping.The next phase is of distribution which requires an efficient strategy through which
costs could be reduced and to use best transit modes at least cost

Somehow sales were reduced for some of the products and for that case Wal-Mart was held
responsible. Wal-Mart has become the largest retailer with the most rapid expansion in their
discount provision network and all of this has happened through proceeding in reducing the
surplus costs in all their operations and inhibiting the marginal expansions. All this has resulted
to an increase in their net income by 25% that has been now $1.6 billion and 18% market share
is possessed by the discount department of their network. Wal-Mart has been always stronger
than its competitors as it has bonded the most powerful relation with every kind of suppliers,
though their always customizing operations and giving a spacious platform to brands to market
their branding and by consolidating with the industry on individual level.

Wal-Mart keeps track of the demand for each product, tracking their movement from other
stores as well, which defines which region requires which type of product in what amount,
through the deployment of a very effective information system that secures all types of transits
and transactions, not only this but also analyses sales, customer trends in reference to market
information, and also by becoming more efficient.

Wal-Mart has a firm belief that they could progress only by developing long-term relationship
with their suppliers so information sharing could be more credible and easy. Other than these
routes in transit system are designed very efficiently and their vehicles are integrated with
special navigational devices that keep their transportation system in Some weaknesses were
also observed in their operating cycle,http://www.ijser.org
discussing them could be utilized as for
recommendations for their supply chain process. Wal-Mart deploys a system in which
distribution warehouse is linked directly to the shipment party; along this the individual
warehouse is also linked to the shipment party. It increases the operational costs as one
shipment is linked to the distribution warehouse and when the order is received, it is selected
and again packed and again then shipped individually to their stores location. This process
increases the time and costs of the transit.

This entire process should be reengineered, a time frame defined, and the distribution center
and individual store for each product should be cross docked on a specific time frame of 2 days
in contact with the shipment independently within both platforms to save cost and time. This
would create a good communication channel between the retailer and the manufacturer directly
as well. Other than this the Quick Response system of Wal-Mart is effective but with the
deployment of latest technological equipment all system involved in this program could
communicate with each other to reduce lying issues and the common factor in all three systems;
Vendor managed QR, Justin Time System and Wal-Mart managed QR is the role of a supplier
and this could be made more effective if the supplier is aware of the inventory and sales so they
could increase their provisioning of the products from the vendors.
Last but not least, all of this might happen if WalMart's human resources could work together
with all of these tactics and keep employees engaged in their work by inspiring them.

Conclusion
Finally, it is determined that Walmart employs numerous tactics for controlling the company's
supply chain. The report examines three essential aspects of the supply chain: supply chain
complexity, risk management, and sustainability. Walmart's sections must be assessed in order
to measure performance and increase production, according to the research. The three
suggestions for strengthening the set of supply chain measures are offered. The future of
Walmart's supply chain management appears to be digitalized thanks to the implementation of
the SCM system. They are expected to bring inventory innovation in order to manage the global
supply chain.

Reference
 Wal-Mart Supply Chain Management (ijser.org)
 Operations Management. William J. Stevenson, 11th Ed., McGraw-Hill Irwin
 Andel, T., “Partnerships With Pull,” Transportation and Distribution, July 1995, pp. 65-74.
Barry C. Lynn, “Breaking the chain,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2006, page 33.
 Class Lecture

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