Thedesired outcomes for Evergreen Products is to keep a satisfying quality, lowerlead time and decrease inventory in order to satisfy consumers demand.Evergreen should wish to have accurate and timely entry orders in the system.However, this is the bottleneck in the supply chain in our case. Indeed, thechallenging point for the company is their order entry system which bears anegative effect on the company. As it is explained in the case, clerks recordthe customer number on a sheet which creates issues in the form of inaccuracyand inefficiency as soon as they record an error. Therefore, there is a need toeliminate such constraints which limit the flow of activities. A way toresolve this loophole is to have Evergreen centralizing their order via anelectronic system where customers would order their product online. Customerswill be then responsible for populating correct information digitally regardingwhat they are willing to buy.
It would remove bottlenecks and increaseproductivity since it is a centralized and shared system between customers andthe shop floor. Sales account manager will view orders instantaneously, and notwait to pick up the pile of orders once a day. It will increase speed to theprocess. Since less people will connect the overall process errors shoulddiminish. Another way of thinking is that clerks should put orders directly toa system linked with members of the supply chain. Thus, sales account managerwould be in a position to review and report errors more rapidly than in thefirst or second process of the Evergreen case. Moreover, the salesperson couldalso report to the system orders, instead of making mistakes through the phone.Thus, when the top floor receives orders, they can prepare them and correct anymistake.
This patch should reduce by 15% the issue. It would also eliminate therepeat process as soon as a clerk or traveling salesperson perform an error. We can observethat the entry system is dysfunctional. 40% of the orders of the company sufferfrom an error. Thus, the order system is not effective. For instance, for atelephone placed an order to call the sales accounting manager will take half aday to process it, and it takes between half a day to two days for employees toliaise with sales accounting managers. The order entry system needs to changein order to improve the efficiency of the overall process.
