Supply Chain Management

Sport Obermeyer is experiencing much difficulty due to significant lead times needed by its suppliers (especially for the greige fabric). Obermeyer contracts most of its outerwear production through Obersport.

Obermeyer is having difficulty with the supply chain because of difficulty in prediction of demand combined with antiquated suppliers capacity constraints. Contracting with these multiple suppliers to have small amounts of each type of fabric on hand would greatly help the �agility’ of the supply chain. I would suggest two main improvements for the development of an agile supply chain: they are 1) better forecasting for future production, with periodic updates to the forecasts, and 2) better operations and contracts with suppliers. Especially in the new warehouses in China, where labor is less costly, it would relatively simple to produce and have on hand quantities of each type of greige fabric that reflect the proportions in the forecast. In Hong Kong, warehouse space would be prohibitively expensive for this exercise. By having this inventory available, we could begin to decrease the 45-90 day (current) lead time on greige fabric. Our contract structure could also be altered such that each supplier would be required to have on hand smaller quantities of each product in proportions relative to our forecasts. This will build �agility’ into the system.

Another way the supply chain is by attending