Supply chain management and business strategy alignment at Bridgestone Americas

Bridgestone Americas

The ability for a company to align its overall business strategy with all other aspects and operations within the functions of a corporate organization is the underlying challenge for leaders to overcome. The cohesiveness of an organization is reflected in its ability to seamless intertwine complex and delicate parts and pieces together to form a competent force that is designed to compete in tough and competitive markets. All business strategy should eventually examine its ability to create a competitive advantage within that industry by being efficient, economic and most importantly extremely effective.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Bridgestone North America company for its demonstration of the synthesis between supply chain management and business management. This examination will investigate several key aspects about this company that explicitly show how change and improvement may be a directly resulted from a modification and alignment between these aspects of the company. The challenges of these interactions will also be explored for their impact on the exchange while the financial considerations will also be explored to highlight the economic approach of the company itself. This essay will also describe a best practices situation that highlights the importance and significance supply chain management has on the overall success of failure of the organizations' mission and approach to gaining a substantial edge in their markets.

Background Information: Bridgestone Americas

Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC is a developer manufacturer and marketer o of tires for sales in Canada, United States and Latin America. Bridgestone offers their tires through dealers and retailers. The company is headed in Nashville TN. Bridgestone was founded by Shojiro Ishibashi, whose name means "stone bridge. The company originated in Japan and through an evolution of over 100 years a division has been created in TN to facilitate the organizations corporate functions.

Bridgestone is heavily dependent upon its supply chain and logistics management to determine their success for the business. Bridgestone requires many suppliers and codependents in order to make their business run smooth and efficient. This type of complexity can be mitigated with the proper application of supply chain logistics management specifically and properly applied to Bridgestone. According to the organization's website: "At Bridgestone, our dream is to become a truly global enterprise and to establish the Bridgestone brand as the undisputed world No. 1 brand in both name and substance. Across the globe, our entire team is focused on achieving this goal."

Bridgestone's Strategy

Before identifying and aligning the proper supply chain ideas and principles to this company it is necessary to fully comprehend and understand the overall corporate strategy. The importance of this guiding vision helps to illuminate all problems and solutions that may emanate from confusion and complex situations that are sure to arise from the turbulent and troublesome markets that provide leaders of organizations such as Bridgestone the challenges that they face.

According to their corporate website their mission is simple and direct; "Serving Society with Superior Quality." This corporate mission, is quite vague and may cause problems for those who need more direction and detail in their contributions to the team. This is why this mission is set upon several key foundations:

1. Integrity and Teamwork

2. Creative Pioneering

3. Decision-Making Based on Verified, On Site Observations

4. Decisive Action Through Planning

Contained within that wording are simple and direct inspirations and commands that can direct managers and employees at all level the most direct and simple path to serving society with superior quality. The notions of "superior" and "society" suggest that a certain corporate responsibility is warranted and that Bridgestone can live up to it through their various means including supply chain management techniques.

Importance of Supply Chain Management

An organization's supply chain is unique and coordinated with the organizations unique and special brand or approach to business. In this case the overall strategic aims of Bridgestone suggests that supply chain management should resemble superior quality service. Inherent within that mission are subjective ideas that push the management in one direction or another. Balancing the supply chain with these aims is difficult and can not be easily explained in simple words and expression. Often times supply chain management success are felt in at different levels and at different times by different people throughout the organization. Each piece of the logistics puzzle must be aligned however with the proper underlying approach.

Risk is a very important factor dealing with supply chain principles. Logistics managers will only be as successful as they are keen on pointing out reasonable and appropriate risk. This is difficult and may require a constant juggling of ideas and priorities depending on the nature of the risk. "Managing supply-chain risk is difficult because individual risks are often interconnected. As a result, actions that mitigate one risk can end up exacerbating another. Consider a lean supply chain. While bare-bones inventory levels decrease the impact of over-forecasting demand, they simultaneously increase the impact of a supply chain disruption. Similarly, actions taken by any company in the supply-chain can increase risk for any other participating company, " (Chopra & Sodhi, 2012).

Bridgestone's Supply Chain Approach

In is necessary to examine how Bridgestone conducts its supply chain management in order to evaluate its need to change and possible avenues of approach for improving the systems that are in place. The ability for this supply chain approach to successfully resonate with the base strategy source is instrumental in the organizations success and both are dependent on clear and reasonable resolution with one another. Bridgestone elects to enforce quality as a motivating factor in explaining their activities through the supply chain.

Bridgestone has effectively broken their supply management system into 5 different components, each with their own special and unique place within the larger scheme of operation. They are listed as follows:

Assessing Needs

Planning and Development

Raw Material Procurement

Production

Sales and Services

When compiled together, these subsystems formulate an approach that mirrors and reflects the larger corporate organization mission requiring superior quality in its treatment of customers. The customer is the most important client in this complex relationship, due to the power of the consumer's choice. This must be respected and held at high esteem in all developments related to supply chain management and its interlocking relationship with governing principles and mission statements.

Assessing Needs

The problem that all companies possess is a means in which to honestly and accurately predict consumer behavior. The needs of the customer are what drive them to their purchases and these needs must be fully understood so the products at Bridgestone can be tailor made to those customer needs as much as possible. This is the starting point of the problem and the end point as well, because once the customer has been satisfied another need will be newly created to replace that need. It is therefore useful to identify those needs which push the buttons of the consumer into one direction or another. This polarization can be effective in addressing the needs that are to be addressed and eventually incorporated into the larger scheme of operations.

The most important resource any company can possess is its human resources. Despite technological advances, the most wondrous and effective means to create and develop is through the human being. Bridgestone can best address the needs of its customers by involving high quality personnel in their leadership ranks and have high standards in kind and courteous behavior. Too often in today's world the emphasis on profits and power have replaced the ideal of the customer comes first and that Bridgestone in fact has a duty to its customers, as fellow human beings and conscious souls, to do their best when assessing their needs and establishing the best products and the safest manner in which doing it respecting the customer and not leading them down false paths that tend to hide problems rather than reveal solutions and proper behaviors.

Planning and Development

It is necessary to understand some basics about the tire industry when discussing the planning and development of supply chain management interests for Bridgestone. Tires are viewed from several different standpoints and different needs for tires cause changing requirements depending on the application or vehicle the tire is attached to in its performance evaluation.

Blending the qualities of grip, quietness, comfort and durability are the prime target as supply chain managers keep these ideals in mind when relating to quality and quality development. According to its website "Bridgestone augments analytical data prepared by sales sections and the Customer Service Center with real-world feedback from customers and planning and development personnel at overseas sites. We rely on this feedback when engineering the materials, structure, shape and design of each new product. Furthermore, in seeking the optimal balance of various use conditions for the product on the market, this process provides a precisely targeted way to focus the development of new technologies."

Raw Material Procurement

Raw materials provide the essentials of everything here on planet Earth. The delicate balance, that man is indeed a part of, must be always be included in the application of supply chain management in its purest forms. There are many political and social factors that must be dealt with in determining the best options in selecting the highest quality raw materials. "Industry practitioners and policy makers are under increasing pressure to continuously reduce the negative environmental impact of their supply chains. An original equipment manufacturer that is concerned with minimizing the environmental impact of its activities should choose its suppliers based on the trade-off between costs and respective emissions. This decision requires the manufacturer to coordinate closely with its suppliers in order to achieve the required level of emissions, " (Abdallah et al., 2012).

Direct control of these delicate procurement stages of the supply cycle is important and Bridgestone has taken advantage of this idea. The company owns its very own manufacturing plants within each one if its larger division groups that produce the materials for their tire products. Bridgestone's demands are very high and procurement is necessary. While the quality of in-house materials is easier to maintain and produce, out sourced raw materials must meet those same high level standards that have been incorporated with the larger organization.

To help maintain this stable and balanced relationship stays intact, Bridgestone's highly qualified experts can, will and must verify the quality of raw materials when they arrive and examining the documentation of the manufacturing processes that were applied at the supplier's plant or factor. This cooperative effect strengthens the bonds between suppliers and Bridgestone and creates a family of interdependence that must maintain an honest and forthright bond of open dialogue and communication. This action also explicitly supports the overall corporate strategy principle Decision-Making Based on Verified, On Site Observations.

Production

The idea of production within the supply chain management structure at Bridgestone is based on the idea of making precise adjustments of different materials and processes to achieved desired performance. Time and experiences has honed the production techniques for many of the tire creations that are being made in the factories supporting the Bridgestone mission. Many different tires are being created due to the many varying needs of the consumer. New tire developments are always being proposed and often implemented in factories to help meet these customer demands.

Regardless of the customer demands, the factory processes that contribute to the overall supply chain management environment must be focused on producing high quality products in an effective, efficient and ultimately professional manner. Factory work is rote and requires precision and attention to detail. Small and precise measurements are often needed to calibrate equipment to produce the desired product. Those working in the supply chain must understand that this process is crucial to the overall performance of the company, and if the tires being produced are of low quality it can be broken down into two areas failure: Those events that led up to the production, or the production itself. The saying, 'garbage in, garbage out' reflects the need to input the system with high quality raw materials, and marry those materials with fine craftsmen who now how to manipulate the machines and processes to produce the end product.

Sales and Services

The sales floor is an important arena in the supply chain, as Bridgestone realizes that even if the product is of high quality, a high quality sales force is needed to communicate that message of high quality to the end customer. According to their website, Bridgestone "prides itself on the ability to maintain a consistent level of quality from planning through production and then delivers that quality reliably to its customers. Our stores' customer service plays an important role in this process. Our stores take into account the type of vehicle the customer drives, how the vehicle is used and other driving-related concerns the vehicle owner may have before communicating which tires are most appropriate for the driver. For this reason, we strive to foster the development of effective sales personnel."

Recommendations and Conclusions

The ability to manufacture quality products has been proven time and time again by Bridgestone. The ability to last this long in the market is a testament to the time honored organizational practices that have been put on display throughout the decades through thick and thin. The supply chain management is at the core of the company's success and the details and support that are put into each step of the process signifies that management has a strong hold on what makes the company successful. The ability for leadership to align its greater organizational strategy with the supply chain subsystem has provided the necessary balance and resonance to allow for success and growth.

To continue the successful run that this company has experience, it is necessary to remain flexible to outside circumstances that they cannot control. Environmental threats are everywhere and the intent to follow through on strong ideals should be carried out with confidence and vigor in the way that management has deemed correct. Bridgestone's ability to maintain a delicate balance of resource within the supply chain also can help dictate the means in which to lead this company into the future. It is recommended that Bridgestone's mission and principles supporting that mission remain intact and allow for the flexibility of the supply chain managers to absorb and communicate the necessary changes as dictated by industry and market conditions.