This assignment should cover the following requirements:

1. Transportation & Logistics – There are transportation and logistics options for products to be shipped from their point of origin to the national brands warehouse or the retailers distribution center/s.  Most national brands and retailers will utilize 3rd party transportation companies or logistics companies to manage the movement of their products to their destination.  If your retailer provides private brands, try to determine what form of transportation and/or logistics your retailer uses to bring products to their distribution centers from the country where the products are produced.  If your retailer provides national brands, try to determine what forms of transportation and/or logistics their dominant brands use to ship products from their own warehouses to the retailer. Information can be found in articles on your retailer and some retailers have this info on their websites (this is also true for national brands).  Primarily focus on shipments to the USA but if your retailer also has international stores, see if you can research how they transport to those stores as well. The USA is the most important. Analyze your retailers current transportation and logistics strategies to determine if they are serving the needs of the customer in these different locations.  Resources – internet search your retailer’s name along with “transportation” or “logistics”.  And of course, Panjiva is a terrific resource for this part of the assignment since the shippers (names of companies along with the type of transportation) are listed with the ports of export or lading and the destination or ports of unlading.
2. Distribution to stores including fulfillment centers  For private brand distribution, how are the products allocated and distributed to the stores.  Is inventory held in a single distribution center or do they have multiple DCs until the stores need the product or is everything shipped to the stores and then held in the retailers back stock room?  For national brand distribution, does the retailer have the brand ship directly to their stores?  Or does the retailer have the brand prepare floor-ready products shipped to the distribution centers and then cross-docked immediately to the stores upon receipt?  For online orders, does the retailer have a separate fulfillment center for online orders or do they ship online orders from their distribution center?  Or do they ship online orders from inventory held in their retail stores?  How is the in-store inventory moved to locations where there is customer demand and create omni-channel distribution?  How does your retailers distribution differ from its competitors?  Analyze your retailers current distribution strategies to determine if they are serving the need of the customer in these different locations again with the emphasis on USA-based store locations.  If you happen to have selected an exclusive web-based retailer, you will focus on the distribution to customers exclusively since there are no stores.  Resources – again try internet searching your retailer’s name along with “distribution centers” or “fulfillment centers”.  Also, check the retailer’s job board for positions in distribution and even Glassdoor can give you lots of insight as to the retailer’s distribution operation.
3. Supply Chain Technology  What forms of supply chain technology are used to manage the flow of products from the point of origin to the end-user?  Point of purchase, inventory management, RFID, PLM, ERP, SCM, ASN.  If you arent aware of any technology being used, what about their competitors?  What technology would improve the relations and collaboration in the supply chain?  What technology would benefit their business to help serve the needs of customers?   Resources – again the retailer’s name with “technology” or add some of the types of technology listed above.  You can even add “supply chain technology”, “logistics technology”, “distribution technology”, etc.
4. Global Supply Chain Flow Chart– include a detailed flow chart of your retailer/brands from design to sourcing through the global supply chain and logistics to the stores and/or the end-user consumer. Descriptions of the tasks provided in each process along with the location/s of each process/task should be identified.  There is an example flow chart outline in the Week 7 Road Map under Activities.  Use this as a guideline to cover each process of the Supply Chain flow.  Also, http://open.sourcemap.com/ provides great tools for creating a sourcing map.  See the handout in the Week 7 Road Map under Activities as well. 

The assignment should be professionally written and thoroughly researched.  In addition to the retailers website, please use a minimum of 3 additional resources.   If you are having difficulty finding good resources please contact the instructor.  Some research suggestions were listed in the instructions above so please try them.  Make sure that all articles are current no more than 6 months old as conditions are constantly changing around the world.  Information should be fact-based with in-text cites on all statistics (MLA format).  Please include a title page and works cited page (MLA format).