Rely 4 mgt656 for apa format
Repost 3 week 7 DB 1 week 75 words
1 response Db. / quality management and continuous improvement
Each post should be one paragraph in length (225 words) and must be substantive in nature Do not simply state that it is a good or bad idea, specify why and be detailed in your explanation. Aside from assisting a classmate, the goal is to demonstrate your mastery of the concepts.
And Assignment . Week3
1 response 75 words
2 response 75 words
3 response 75 words
Notes
You provided a solid discussion but needed more detail about the economic, political, social, and legal implications of the situation. You did well to present a detailed discussion. I appreciate the development of your presentation and the organization of your ideas.
Reponses:
#1 post and 75 words
Re:Unit4 - Discussion Board
American InterContinental University
MGT 656 - DB Unit 4
Supply Chain Ethical or Legal Decision
Diane M. Locher
February 17, 2014
Supply chain management links raw materials to manufacturers from production and distribution of finished goods through consumption (Supply Chain Management, 2014). This includes all activities end to end including sourcing raw materials, marketing, operations and logistics to bring a product or service to market, and distribution to wholesalers and end users (Supply Chain Management, 2014). This process links multiple companies and the consumer together into one large comprehensive process (Supply Chain Management, 2014). The product flow is concerned with the movement of products from manufacturer or wholesaler to the consumer, and the return of those goods or any service related needs (Supply Chain Management, 2014).
Supply Chain Issue:
We recently received a return and exchange of goods from an account that claimed the color, smell and texture of a product were “bad”, and it was in old packaging. The return was process by providing a packaging label to the account, and sending new product. Lot codes were provided and checked against the same batch which we store in controlled temperatures for three years past the indicated expiration dates. Since the lot codes were within normal limits for expiration, the returned merchandise was put back in stock rather than sent to the lab for analysis. While this is proper protocol, the agent processing the dispute should have had a process exception to intervene and ask for a sample of the returned goods to be analyzed before putting back in stock.
Several weeks later, two additional complaints were logged regarding the same batch and description of unsatisfactory quality. Again, the lot codes were compared to our internal samples and they were within range. However, this time I was copied on the transaction, and I asked that the product be intercepted and sent to the lab for additional analysis. Upon review, the returned samples were not the same color of the internal samples from the same lot and date. This indicated to our Quality team that there was not an issue with the batch, but rather a possible issue with variations in temperatures in the warehouse. Separately, since the warehouse fulfills orders with stock using FIFO, the old packaging raised the question of why that product was still in inventory.
Ethical or Legal Concerns:
One of the issues with active ingredients is shelf life and efficacy. If we provide defective product or expired product knowingly to one of our accounts, we not only risk our good faith relationship selling quality product to our accounts, but also potentially cause an adverse reaction for the patient. Adverse events reported by consumers or accounts to our company must be documented and reported to the FDA (FDA, 2014). This data is used by the FDA to identify and alert the public regarding potential safety issues (FDA, 2014).
Additionally, knowingly providing product that is defective or out of date would be a breach of contract with our accounts according to our terms of sale.
Addressing the Situation:
Several steps have been taken to improve quality process and control since this event:
Weekly quality notes are provided to all internal managers in order to be aware of all complaints and returns so that we can alert the field sales teams and monitor frequency of occurrence to identify trends and act quickly to correct issues;
• Returns to be placed in inventory will be rejected by the warehouse if they are due to a quality issue to allow further testing and prevent defective or old inventory from recirculating;
• Holding temperatures in the warehouse have been tested, checked against specifications and are tested and documented daily;
• Internally customer service has been empowered to intervene in the return and restock process if they suspect a product would fail quality standards even though the lot codes are within reasonable limits (in other words, using best judgment to identify outliers rather than following procedure that could allow a bad batch to go un-noticed).
This situation made us aware of several weak spots in our supply chain and quality control systems. Originally it was suspected that the defect could have been a raw material, which is early in the supply chain when raw material is sourced and utilized by the manufacture to produce finished goods according to specifications. However, since internal holds include lots for several years, this potential cause was easy to eliminate and allow further investigation. There were two issues identified within the supply chain. The first was with the warehouse responsible for storage and replenishment of finished goods to our customers, the second was with the process to evaluate returns to identify defectives. In this case, we were able to avoid any un-necessary ethical or legal complications by making adjustments to prevent and resolve the issue.
FDA, (2014). FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Surveillance/AdverseDrugEffects/default.htm
Supply Chain Management, (2014). What is supply chain management? Retrieved from https://supplychainmanagement.in/scm/index.htm
#2 post
75 words apa format
Shirley Bradford
Unit 4 DB
2/17/2014
Despite all technological advances, supply chain management is always based on the interaction of people. Whenever people interact, some ethical and legal issues emerge. The following paper discusses an important ethical issue associated with global supply chains.
Ethical Issue in Nike
The global marketplace requires supply chains to be agile and diffuse. The manufactures deal with a number of ethical issues like use of child labor, unfair working conditions, unfair wages, the ecological sustainability of their production methods, intellectual property right violations and ignoring health, safety and environmental standards (Neef , 2004). Violation of basic ethics can cause damage to businesses and cost to organizations due to actions like lawsuits or theft of goods and ideas. Debatably, child labor is the issue, where the most agreements exist.
The managers of an American multinational company “Nike” have been accused of using child labor in the production of soccer balls. Nike is one of the world’s top sport clothing brands, but for years, it has been criticized by the allegations of sweatshops and child labors (Neef, 2004). This has badly affected the image of the company and lowered its sales. To control such situations, the managers of the company took actions in order to provide solutions to all activism it faced; otherwise it can prove devastating for the company’s image in the long run.
In the above section, light is shed on the ethical issues faced by the managers of famous multinational company and the below section discusses how those issues were addressed in the company and the effective solutions adopted by the company to control them.
Solution adopted by managers
The managers of the company have done a better job by implementing the global standards of conduct and adopting measures to improve its openness to the media. Nike has worked to improve the labor conditions in its footwear, apparel and equipment supply chains and engaged in the activities, which include the health and safety of workers, excessive overtime, the ability of workers to freely associate, and child labor and forced labor (Blanchard, 2004). Nike has also launched new sourcing and manufacturing tools that are associated with product formation and build an integrated, multi-disciplinary team to support the sourcing selection and performance.
The above section highlights the solutions adopted by the managers to prevent the ethical issues faced by the company and the below section will discuss the solutions, which should have been adopted by the company to improve its environmental and sustainability ethics in the supply chain management.
Suggested solution
The managers of the company should work to create a new organizational structure within the company that bring together the labor compliance, health, safety and environment, lean manufacturing, human resource management, climate and energy, waste and water management. The company should also focus on the creation of a “sustainable supply chain” that includes sustainability on equal balance with cost, on-time delivery and quality of products. The company should also take measures to build their human resource management skills and help them reach even higher levels of economic, social and environmental performance.
References
Neef. D. 2004. The supply chain imperative. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Blanchard, D. (2010). Supply chain management best practices. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Olaoluwa Oladejo
MGT656 Quality Management and Continuous Improvement
1. Describe a situation in which you (or a manager you worked for) had to make an ethical or legal decision based on some aspect of the supply chain. If you are not aware of any situation where you (or a manager you worked with) had to make a legal or ethical supply chain decision, create a fictitious situation.
A patient health’s information is protected by HIPAA and health care professional are bound by the laws and regulations of HIPAA. Most retail pharmacy tends to hire individual for entry level position in the pharmacy, not all the new hires know about HIPAA or properly trained. During my time as pharmacy technician at a major retail pharmacy, the pharmacy is responsible for providing a list of drugs been used by the patient upon request, which is mostly done toward end of the year or beginning of the year for tax purpose or therapy updates. Health information can only be requested by the patient or authorized caretaker with patient’s signature on file. The pharmacy had just a hired a new individual and prior to the completion of his training, he released patient health care information to an unauthorized caretaker; which means that the caretaker was not authorized to handle the patient’s information since the patient’s signature was not on file to authorize such release. The pharmacist discovered the issue and has a sole responsibility of notifying the patient about the incident.
2. Discuss how these issues were addressed in the company.
The pharmacist contacted the individual to return back to the pharmacy with the released information. Although, the patient authorized the caretaker to retrieve the information but we were not supposed to release the information without the patient signature on file. The pharmacist contacted the patient to authorize the individual by signing a release form and the released information was given back to the caretaker. The pharmacist also notified the legal team in the company to prevent possible legal actions from the patients. The new hire was also instructed not perform any job duties without shadowing from an experienced employee until his training was complete
3. How they should have been addressed?
The practice across the industry states that patients must be notified immediately after any unauthorized information release. The company must officially sent a notice to patient describing the incident of the information release and indicate measures that have been instituted to prevent such incident from happening again.