Your goal is to improve your firm's overall financial, operating, and market performance.

Supply chain management addresses fundamental issues of controlling the planning, sourcing, making, and delivering of manufactured goods.

Links: Manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, retailers and end users. Firms in LINKS areresponsible for managing product development, procurement (purchasing/sourcing),manufacturing, distribution and warehousing, transportation, customer service, generate
IT and Research Studies are available for fee.

The learning objectives implicit in the LINKS simulation include the following: Gaining exposure to all supply chain elements individually and to their associated interactions Appreciating the need for balance and managing trade-offs in supply chains Experiencing competitive dynamics in an evolving marketplace Appreciating information flows and integration of information with decision making Enhancing and encouraging fact-based analysis and decision making Gaining familiarity with financial statements used routinely in for-profit businesses. Periods and decisions: Each period in LINKS is one calendar month. No seasonality. You assume control of your firm at the end of month 3. Your first decisions are for month 4. Firms in your industry started month 1 identically (i.e., all competitors emulating each other exactly). Decisions were constant throughout months 1-3. Financial and market positions of the firms in your industry vary somewhat after month 3 due to normal randomness in markets.

Product: Set-top Boxes, Hi-tech electronic products for home use and office use Manufacturing plant: region 1 Distribution center: Inventory the product, fill orders from retailers and direct channels, Inventory of sub-assembly components for replacement. Location of DC: adjacent to manufacturing plant and share sub-assembly with manufacturing plant too. LINKS fourth-generation set-top boxes include telephony applications (such as interactive video conferencing), local-area wireless networking, control/monitoring of a range of within-area electrical appliances/devices, digital media server, and basic virtual reality capabilities.

LINKS includes hyperware and metaware set-top box categories sharing 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. General Procurement. Manufacturing Distribution Transportation. Service mechanisms

But for end users these are different. No direct completion across the Hyperware and Metaware categories.(So only just Substitutes??) Firm-F Product-P F-P => Firm F, Product P. Your firm has a manufacturing plant and owned distribution center in region 1. You may choose to have third-party or owned distribution centers in regions 2 and 3. Your manufacturing plant in region 1 produces set-top boxes that are shipped to distribution centers in the regions served by your firm. Currency Unit: LCU (Links currency Unit) Multi country currency Analysis Planning Implementation Evaluation Cycle: Analysis: Current financial , operating, and market performance, which involves both individual and within team analysis. Planning: make decisions for the next round Implementation: Submit ur decisions, Simulation runs and new results are available. Evaluations: Compare ur plan to ur results. Product 1: Hyperware Configuration Elements 1. "H" 2. Alpha 3. Beta 4. Bandwidth 5. Warranty 6. Packaging Product 2: Metaware 1. "M" 2. Alpha 3. Beta 4. Bandwidth 5. Warranty 6. Packaging Definitions Category [hyperware ("H")
or metaware ("M")]

0-9 Kg of Raw Material 0-9 Kg of Raw Material 1-7 Terahertz 0-4 Months Stnd ("1"), Prem ("2"), or ES Prem ("3")

SubAssembly Components

Epsilon Gamma

Epsilon Delta

Common SubAssembly Component Unique Sub-Assembly Component

Product costs: 1. Bandwith 1 = 10+ 0.5 (T*T*T) T = Terahertz 6 = 118$ Customers will always prefer more bandwidth. You can add as much as u can between 1 7. 2. Warrenty: (out-sourced to reputed service dealer) Cost : $8+3(W*W) 1month : 11 => 8+3(1*1) 2 months: 20 3 Months: 35 4 months : 56 These warranty costs are paid directly to the outsourced warranty provider at the time the product is manufactured. Warranty costs do not depend on the failure rates of the subassembly components. Set-top box manufacturers are responsible for the costs associated with replacing sub-assembly components that fail in the field during the warranty period associated with a set-top box product. Warranties are honored in the original calendar month of sale plus the additional number of months of the warranty associated with a product's configuration. 3.Packaging 1.Standard: 10 2.Premium : 14 3.Environmentally sensitive premium: 28

Chapter 4: Set-top boxes are composed of either one Gamma (for hyperware) or one Delta (for

metaware) sub-assembly component. Gamma and Delta sub-assembly components are available on the spot-market for immediate delivery. Epsilon sub-assembly components are delivered one month after ordering, Postponed production: sub-assembly components inventories must be managed at your regional distribution centers Currently Manufacturing at ur manufacturing plant: inventories of sub-assembly components also have to be managed at the manufacturing plant. Manufacturer chooses modes, but supplier arranges transportation. Suppliers and Manf are jointly responsible for transportation decisions