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    International Workshop on

                Achieving a Responsive Supply Chain

(IWARSC 2010) - 30 & 31st of July 2010

 

Two days International Workshop on “Achieving a Responsive Supply Chain (IARSC 2010)” was jointly organized by Advanced Innovative Manufacturing & Management Research Group (AIMMRG), Coimbatore Institute of Technology, India and Business Innovation Research Centre (BIRC), Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA. On day 1 (30th of July 10), event started with the inaugural function, welcome address was by the president of the event, Professor

V.Selladurai, Principal & HOD Mechanical Engineering.

 

Chief patron of the workshop, Dr. S.R.K Prasad, Correspondent, CIT Institutions, addressed the gathering with some of the recent trends in the field of supply chain that he absorbed from his IT industry. In particular, he coined the trends in supply chain that exists between India and China in meeting the end-user needs.  This was followed by, a brief overview about the workshop by Professor. T.Sridar. 

 

            Vice president of the event, Professor N.Murugan, Department of Mechanical Engineering highlighted about the need for the workshop at the current scenario and welcomed the chief guest. Dr. Syama Sunkara, Global Head, Supply Chain Practice, TCS, India as a chief guest, who provided a value add to the workshop. During his speech, from his industrial experience, highlighted some of the responsive supply chains and brought forward some ideas in achieving responsiveness. This was followed by special address by Professor Angappa Gunasekaran and Professor Bharatendra K Rai, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA. They brought forward the essentiality and potential benefits by achieving responsive supply chains.

 

           Dr. Rajesh Ranganathan, group head -AIMMRG, convener of the event proposed a vote of thanks at the end of the inaugural function. About 40 delegates from industries, academic institutions, business schools and R & D establishments participated in the workshop.

 

The inaugural function was followed by first technical session. Professor Angappa Gunasekaran delivered a guest lecture on “Implementation of ERP System”. His lecture included a detailed research work that was undergone in finding the need and performance improvement by adopting IT. He shared his case study research work undergone with Rolls- Royce, Derby, UK and the performance improvement that rendered by the application of ERP.

 

Professor Gunasekaran, in his second session delivered his lecture on the topic of “Responsive Supply Chain: A Competitive Strategy in a Networked Economy”. Briefing about responsive supply chains, he described the need for responsiveness in sourcing, manufacturing and delivery. His discussions about achieving responsiveness opened up several lines of facts in supply chain through his industrial examples of CEMEX, AT&T Electronics, Libbey and Nissan. Professor Gunasekaran concluded his lectures with a discussion on methods of achieving responsiveness and with some of the future strategies towards achieving responsiveness.

 

Session 3 on day 1 was taken over by, Professor G.Raghuram, IIM, Ahmedabad, India; he presented on the topic “SCM : Integrated Perspective”. Described the competitive advantage of supply chain through practical examples, his case studies included GCMMF/NDDB and Wagh Bakri Tea group. With postponement an essentiality to achieve competitiveness, Professor Raghuram explicitly detailed with the case example of Asian Paints. He detailed about the various factors that aid the supply chain in terms of achieving a competitive advantage, concluded his session with the need of performance measurement tools in supply chain.

 

            Session 4 on day 2 (30th July 10), was by Dr Bharatendra K Rai, Department of Decision Sciences, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts, USA. His lecture was on the topic of “Managerial Breakthrough Strategy & Methodology”. He provided an in-depth knowledge on goal and six sigma methodology. He described the concepts by taking over some case examples like; card issuance automation, robust design of faceplate of a car CD player etc. Through his examples, he shared his knowledge on cause and effect analysis, experimentation planning, analysis, results and conduct of confirmatory trial.

 

            Session 5, day 2 was by Professor C. Rajenderan, IIT Madras. His guest lecture was on “Issues in SC involving information sharing / inventory optimization”. Started his lecture from the basics of supply chain, discussion about the basics, he was vivid in providing clarification between theory and practice. Moving up the ladder, Professor Rajenderan, elaborated on the three levels of decision making processes in supply chain. Extended his lecture to the various operations research models in SCM and provided depth knowledge about the link between inventory and information sharing. His lecture was well appreciated by all the participants. At the end, the participants gave the feedback and the workshop came to an end with the distribution of certificates to the participants.

 

  

               Dr.K.Rai                                                                                 Chief Guest Dr.Syama Sunkara

  

                          Delegates                                                                  Prof G_Raghuram, IIM Ahmedabad

   

                 Inaugural function                                                                     Inaugural Speech by Chief Patron,

                                                                                                                            Dr. S.R.K Prasad, Correspondent,

                                                                                                                     CIT Institutions

  

Professor Angappa Gunasekaran                                      Professor C.Rajendran, IIT Madras