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MEMO

To: The Successor

From: Trinadh Mamandur

Date: 05/01/2014

Subject: Experience with LINKS Simulation

I would like to address few questions in detailing my experience with LINKS Simulation.

1. What worked well?

Setting a Strategic Challenge is key to improve long-run profitability. Focusing on one thing at a time

worked well for us. First few months (months 4, 5) our firms customer satisfaction was poor and we

tried to improve it by cutting down the failure rate and reducing unfilled orders. We managed to

improve on Customer Satisfaction towards the end of the 9th Month. Therefore, our strategy is to

provide products with

Best value for money.

High fill rate.

Reasonable price.

This strategy worked well for the firm. Activating all necessary IT for our suppliers and carriers improved

our performance. In each month we buy either Regional summary to get a big picture or Market

statistic to monitor the market. This helped us in analyzing our firms stand overall in the market.

2. Things that didn’t work well. Suggestions for improvement.

However there are few areas which did not work well for us. Forecasting accuracy was poor for months

4 to 7 as we used Average Growth Rate forecasting method. This was not effective as we tried changing

Trinadh Mamandur 05/01/2014

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the cost of the product frequently and this had huge impact on the sales volume. But during Month 8 we

devised a new Forecasting Model taking factors such as % change in Sales Volume for the past months

and tried to correlate with the price change. Every time the price of a product is increased the sales drop

down rapidly. So we realized that the key is in making the price stay the same after sales bounce back;

this we implemented in month 8 to obtain improved results overall. We should have owned the DC in

Region 3 to launch postponement production that could help us gain more profits. This in turn would

decrease the transportation costs.

3. What would I suggest you do to prepare for this class/simulation combination?

Should more carefully study the LINKS Manual. Learn how to better balance the tradeoff

between cost and quality. We did not own a DC in any region and I feel this cost us dear in the long run.

We could have saved a lot of operating expenses by insourcing RFID-application. Manufacturing Product

0 would have been more profitable in the long run as this would have given us the option of postponed

production. Product 0 would help in managing the inventory better by increasing some of the Fill Rate

according to the demand.

4. Based on our firm’s performance, what grade do I believe our firm earned?

I believe that we earned full credit, given the fact that our Firm managed to bounce back from terrible

performances, we did very well in allocating resources to bring us back in the game.

5. Based on my individual contribution, what grade do I think I earned?

I think that I earned full credit as I actively participated in decision inputs throughout all the months.

Also I successfully managed to improve the forecasting accuracy by changing the Forecasting model for

month8.

Trinadh Mamandur 05/01/2014