Improving late delivery performance a study of rochdale spears ltd, company

After examining many relevant literatures on shipping late in manufacturing the potential antecedents that are believed to provide the most understanding are: production capacity, produc

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

PHAM THI AI VAN

IMPROVING LATE DELIVERY PERFORMANCE:

A STUDY OF ROCHDALE SPEARS LTD, COMPANY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

PHAM THI AI VAN

IMPROVING LATE DELIVERY PERFORMANCE:

A STUDY OF ROCHDALE SPEARS LTD, COMPANY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: TRAN HA MINH QUAN

Ho Chi Minh City - 2018

Executive summary

In today‘s scenario, delivering product to the customers at the shortest possible time is

a challenge for all the manufacturing industries In typical manufacturing organizations, functional units have their own goals As there is no single functional unit responsible for on-time delivery, in traditional organizations on-time delivery has received minimal attention An important feature of the conventional wisdom of make

to order (MTO) manufacturing has been that if a plant‘s management wishes to achieve good delivery performance they need to quote a long lead time The long lead times give them the ability to plan production effectively and achieve high levels of delivery performance However, it has been reported that the reverse situation occurs, namely manufacturing plants quoting short customer lead times were, in fact, achieving much better delivery performance than those plants that quoted long lead times (Szwejczewski et al 1997)

Although this topic has received considerable attention in the literature, most of the articles are restricted by their limited approach concerned primarily with the effect of various delivery date assignment methods Manufacturing is an integrated system covering everything from order receipt through to the product shipment (Hitomi 1991) It covers a wide range of activities in many functional areas including planning and design, purchasing, production, inventory, distribution, marketing and sales On-time delivery or lead time cannot be dealt with in isolation In order to make any realistic and sustained improvement in (on time delivery) OTD performance, the whole manufacturing planning, control and execution cycle and associated systems have to be taken into consideration

Realising the importance of such an approach, this study proposes a model to improve on-time delivery performance through business process model integrating two common processes involved in manufacturing planning, control and execution cycle for MTO situations and a database for supporting various functional applications through basic and transaction data The proposed model was implemented through Rochdale Spears Ltd, company

The rest of the paper is organised as follows First, a review of the company background as well as current problems that company is facing Next, the proposed improvement solutions are presented, followed by a section on a systematic investigation of the on time delivery problems and implementation of the solutions to overcome the problems in Rochdale Spears company Finally, research findings and conclusions are drawn

Acknowledgements

I would especially like to show my gratefulness and special thanks to my supervisor –

Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan for all his continuous supports, advices and instructions through the process of researching and writing this thesis Without his enthusiastic help, this thesis could not have been accomplished

I also would like to show my gratitude to ISB lecturers, my colleagues at work, my classmates at ISB for their valuable knowledge and continuous support I also send my sincere thankfulness to my family for their support and encouragement throughout my years of study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive summary 3

Acknowledgements 5

I PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 7

1.1 Company background 8

Company mission 8

1.2 Problem symptoms 9

1.3 Problem identification 11

Central problems validations 14

1.4 Potential cause of problem and the justification 24

1.4.1 Lack of cross-functional knowledge 24

1.4.2 Company’s service innovation strategy 25

1.4.3 Personality difference 25

II ALTERNERTIVE SOLUTIONS AND ACTION PLANS 28

2.1 Solutions 28

2.2 Solution details 28

2.2.1 Estimate an accurate and unified delivery date using a systematic procedure 28

2.2.2 Facilitate communication as the primary condition 29

2.2.3 Focus on processes rather than on functional units 29

2.2.4 Closer coordination with suppliers 30

2.2.5 Employee involvement 30

2.3 Implementation of the proposed improvement solutions 30

2.4 Difficulties faced: 32

2.5 Results of implementation of the above solutions 33

III CONCLUSIONS 35

Appendix A: In depth interview information 36

Reference 53

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1 Company sale report 2016-2018 ……….08

Table 2: Shipping performance 2017……… 09

Table 3: RH team lead time report ……….10

Table 4: Key accounts team lead time report………10

Table 5: Key accounts - sale report………11

Table 6: Weekly performance report -2018……… 33

Table 7: Weekly average lead time report 2018 ……… 34

LIST OF TABLE Figure 1: Process of an order -16

Figure 2: Problem validation -21

Figure 3: Initial cause effect map -23

Figure 4: Final cause and effect map -27

I PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1.1 Company background

Was founded in 2003 by entrepreneur Geoff Hawkes, Rochdale Spears is a very successful group of companies which design, manufacture, and distribute designer home furnishings and decorative accessories through high-end distributors and retailers in USA and our new internet platform for international distribution, Resource Decor The Group continues to grow rapidly with almost 4,000 employees in Vietnam across 5 manufacturing plants, headquarters in Hong Kong and offices in the US The success of the business has led to established, long-term relationships with Century Furniture, Lillian August, and Restoration Hardware, Morden History, Anthropology, and others customer which brings a huge of orders for the company

With a reputation for exceptional quality and exquisite craftsmanship, Rochdale Spears Company has become a proud leader in exceptional design, innovative product development and world-class manufacturing in the luxury furniture market

Table 1 Company sale report 2016-2018

Total value/account/year

(forecast)

RH $ 56,849,682 $ 67,336,479 $ 78,609,705 Major accounts $ 4,629,986 $ 11,213,378 $ 19,216,946 Key accounts $ 21,368,477 $ 17,487,474 $ 16,413,191 Total $ 82,848,144 $ 96,037,330 $ 114,239,842

(Source:RSC)

Company mission

Rochdale Spears Company is an internationally focused, business-to-business enterprise, serving some of the biggest names in the luxury furniture market The company is proud leader in exceptional design, innovative product development and world-class manufacturing

RSC is proud to uphold a positive culture and safe working environment for our team, allowing them to perform at their highest ability, and provide outstanding service to our customers

As custodians of the planet, the company remain committed to reducing our impact on the environment, supporting local communities, sourcing the highest quality natural materials and adopting sustainable principles where possible

1.2 Problem symptoms

To find out what are the current problems that our company is facing, the writer had carried out in-depth interview with some of managers as well as staffs in the company Most of people realized that although the business of the company is increased in total amount as we are widening the new factory at the other Plan, however, we have lost much of orders from some of initial important customers due to our service was not really good, especially that the shipping performance showing high rate of late shipment while the percentage for on-time shipment is occupied a small number, it‘s a poor performance

Table 2: Shipping performance 2017

(Source: sale team-RSC)

According to the Shipping performance report from Sale department in 2017, generally, it is showing clearly that the company have a poor delivery performance Major account occupied the highest rate of late shipment with approximately 51%, following is RH with around 46% and the last one is Key accounts with 42% However, Key account had the lowest rate of shipment shipped on-time with only 16% for the on-time POs and 42% was for the early shipment Major accounts and RH

were following with 16.7% and 29.6% of on-time shipment, 32.6% and 24.7% of early shipment respectively This result significantly impacted to the company performance to customers as well as causing a huge of increasing cost for the company

RH, the biggest customer of the company has intended to move their business to the other factory as our performance is going down recently Most of the shipments are not met what customer requested as well as what we confirmed Production lead time

is 118 days in average for mass production while our committed lead time is 90 days for the repeated orders and 120 days for the newness ones The below table is taken from our weekly report by RH sale team:

Table 3: RH team lead time report

Table 4: Key accounts team lead time report

(Source:RSC)

Table 5: Key accounts - sale report

(Source:RSC)

1.3 Problem identification

It is important to figure out the reasons for high rate of late shipment at Rochdale Spears and its consequences After examining many relevant literatures on shipping late in manufacturing the potential antecedents that are believed to provide the most understanding are: production capacity, production control, productivity, procurement, process robustness, product delivery responsibilities, material inventory, sub-

contracting job, accident happens, sourcing of raw material, inferior quality in sourced goods, product development and sampling…

In addition, the in-depth interview sessions are conducted from 3 main groups: sale team, production team and purchasing team who are working and involving directly to the production process From each department we will find out the main reasons causing for this delaying

At the beginning we can easily seeing the 3 main outstanding reasons causing for late

of delivery on the company are: Lately delivery of material, delay from subcontractors and production controlling Those are the reason that we initially getting from the interviewing, most of people realized that the company having high proportion of late delivery, and the outstanding reasons that everyone can see that are: Lately delivery of material, delay from subcontractors and production controlling

Delay delivery of raw material from suppliers

$1,336,742 $404,237

$279,031

$1,750,588 $1,209,527

Normally, material controller will discuss directly with suppliers after receiving new sale orders from sale team then informing lead time for factory planner After that, production lead time will be added with material lead time to have the confirmed ship date, that is what sale team will base on to confirm with client and setting up the agreed ship date

Suppliers sometimes fail to send material on time due to many uncertainties In that case, shipping schedule cannot be kept as original confirmation

―ABC manufacturing, one of our suppliers, delivered late, and that‘s why our products

is shipping late‖

The problem with the scenario outlined above is that if the order is shipping late that most of the manufactures respond to their customers Rochdale Spears also got that case and we have to do so like the others have been doing

Mr Chau – Finishing manager in Rochdale Spears stated that:

Material is what affected to our production planning mostly, as finishing is the last step before packing, without hardware such as shelf pins, levellers, handles…we cannot complete the product and pack it When any PO being stuck due to material, we have to pull

up the other ones to keep production continuing Material is what out of our control, that why there are the earlier shipments and late shipments

According to the report from sale team, number of orders shipped late due to material

is occupied 31%, while the number for delayed orders from subcontractors is 19.7%, the rest 49.3% of orders shipped late was caused by others reasons

Delays from sub-contracting jobs

Nowadays, there are many of furniture makers have remained competitive by keeping the tasks they do best in-house and leaving the rest to outside resources More specifically, the industry remains largely dependent on subcontractors, many of which produce whitewood parts and components This cuts down on the amount of work that needs to be done in-house, allowing the manufacturers to focus on areas such as final assembly and finishing to packaging and quality control

Our Rochdale Spears is also doing so, they are letting the other small manufactures as subcontractors doing other tasks such as white wood, resin…then the final tasks as assembly and finishing to packing will be focussed doing in house That means, our schedule is affected if the subcontractors losing their management and supplying the

components later than committed schedule This situation is often happen and the manufacturers have to find out solutions to avoid any delayed shipment and satisfied their customers

Mr Chuong - Technicial manager in Plant 4 has stated that:

Much of subcontractors are showing very good performance in making sample, however, until getting the actual production order, they cannot make it as what they did causing quantity for sample is just only one, they pay all their attention to complete the sample as soon as possible but don‘t care about the difficulties in mass production That is the reason why much of subcontractors have delayed their orders, even some of factories refused to receive orders In that case, our tech team have to study and find the ways as well as the other suitable subcontractors

Ms Luong from planning team always complained that subcontractors usually provided component lately, it affect too much to our production planning

Subcontractors they don‘t pay attention to complete their orders on time They always wait for our pushing then they start to produce As you can see from the current actual order for AT176F01, purchasing confirmed that they will provide us the white wood on the week 48,

so we had confirmed with sale team that production can be completed on week 51 However, until week 45 they had been starting their productions and getting trouble with humidity, they delayed the order until week 50 In this case, our RSC finishing team having only 1 week to complete finishing as well as packaging, this is unable Although we had charged back to the subcontractors for their late delivery but we also losing our performance with our end client as well even this is not our failures

In this case, we can see that late delivery can be caused by subcontractors due to absence of planning at subcontractor factories

Poorly production controlling

Production control is the discipline that determines what needs to be built and when it needs to be built in order to ship product on time Doing so requires real planning skills, the ability to work backward from a future point in time to determine what has

to happen and when it has to happen (Joseph H Berk)

In RSC, central planning department is controlling for whole production from very beginning until shipment They are the persons who confirmed delivery schedule for customer service staffs to confirm with client Their responsibility is really important

and affect too much to the shipping performance of the company But it seems like they are not controlling it well

According to Ms Van- Customer service staff in RSC has advised that:

The requirement for central planning department is that they should control and plan well their shipping schedule However, there are lots of orders have been being out of control, until the customer service staff chasing for shipping, they come back for checking material

as well as other related departments to know how is it going now Mr Binh he is the supervisor in planning department, but his duty is just checking and confirming schedule for sale team, then how are production going is not related to him While Ms Luong, the planner in Plant 1, she just checking schedule and status of material to see whether they arrived on time or not whenever CS asking her‖

Central problems validations

From the above provided reasons causing for high rate of late delivery, everyone agreed that we should find out the solution for solving as well as improve the shipping performance However, after having the deeper interviewing with other related persons who working directly and involving to the process of production, we have found that those above outstanding reasons just the symptoms of the important central problems, this is Lack of collaboration between departments

CENTRAL PROBLEMS: Lack of collaboration between departments

Collaborating in the workplace enables businesses to finish important projects and meet crucial deadlines efficiently With multiple individuals working on a project, the work can be divided up equally and efficiently between those with the time and the expertise to handle specific tasks This also significantly reduces the project delivery time Often referred to as the divide and conquer strategy, it entails teaming up of several individuals together, dividing up the tasks among them, and accomplishing the project in relatively less time (Nut Cache)

In typical manufacturing organisations, functional units have their own goals As there

is no single functional unit responsible for on-time delivery, in traditional organisations on-time delivery has received minimal attention

In order to have deeper understanding how collaboration between departments in our company, we need to review the processing of an order to see how it is working:

Later, once the SO is issued, the purchasing team will check material schedule with supplier and confirm back to central planning team for their scheduling and production arrangement

The schedule is setting up by balancing between factory capacity and customer‘s requested ship date After getting the confirmed ship date from CP, sale team should check it to see whether it is met what customer requested or not and working with CP

to have the appropriated ship date as well as well arranging shipping plan

After confirming with customer, the ship date that customer is recording should be matched with what we are recording as this is the unify information we bas on to calculate production lead time and evaluate shipping performance

Central planning team and purchasing team, sale team should follow up production closely to make sure that the order is shipping on time If there is any change, the customer should be informed Sale team have to work with customer to get the approval for the changing and unify solution that both of party can accept it

The packing team is coordinated with sale team in building up and arranging loading plan It is arranged to be matched with the confirmed ship date, then sale team will send the booking request to import-export team for booking the shipment

Production team should be informed what has been booked and keep following up production to be shipped on time

This is an overview of the order process, it is required that all departments have to complete their tasks well If there is any step being stuck or not good completed, the whole processing will be affected

Figure 1: The process of an order:

YES

CUSTOMER SENDING PO THROUGH

ITS SYSTEM OR VIA EMAIL

SALE TEAM: RECEIVE THE PO AND

CHECK IT CARE FULLY

ISSUE SALE ORDER FOR MATERIAL

TEAM & CENTRAL PLANNING TEAM

CENTRAL PLANNING CONFIRM

SHIPPING SCHEDULE FOR SALE TEAM

SALE TEAM RECHECKING IF THE

CONFIRMEED SHIP DATE IS MATCHED

WITH CUSTOMER REQUESTED DATE

CONFIRM THE FINAL SHIP DATE TO

CLIENT FOLLOW UP WITH PRODUCTION TO

ARRANGE SHIPMENT

ARRANING SHIPMENT WITH PACKING

TEAM & IM-EX TEAM

(Source: RSC)

The following provided information will provide us an overview of what are the main tasks each department have to complete as well as showing what they are missing and affected to the whole processing which caused for the late delivery

PRODUCTION TEAM

Production team or central planning team (CP) is the department involving directly and effect too much to production process as well as controlling production schedule They receiving production order from sale team, then confirming shipping schedule to sale team by considering customer‘s requested ship date as well as according to the material schedule, factory capacity and company‘s monthly target Not only have responsibilities in setting up schedule but also taking response in following up and controlling production to be completed timely

But, according to the results of interviewing, there are some ineffectually processes that the team have made causing for the late delivery of products

Confirming schedule: The request is that the factories have to process production

according to customer‘s request However, RSC central planning team just paying attention to the factory target and its own capacity Despite whatever customer is requesting, they base on the material lead time, then adding some weeks for production to fill up and catching the factory output target for each month

Mrs Van from customer service department has shared that:

Many times I have to ask CP to pull up or push out the ship date as their confirmed ship date

is not what customer wants However, the feedback from Mr Binh- planning supervisor is that: the factory is needed more output, output for that month, this month is not enough, board of directors will complain us…Can you just confirm this ship date to customer, if they have no feedback we will process according to this ship date Of course we can negotiate with client to have the appropriate ship date, but top of concerning we have to pay on customer requirement

Following up production: The requirement is that CP should follow up closely with

production in order to keep production running on scheduled and shipping on time However, it seems like that after confirming schedule to sale team, they let production running without following up

Ms Lan Anh – customer service leader has shared that:

Whenever customer service staff asking about status of any order to see whether it can be shipped on time or to check a loading list of the upcoming shipment, late factory planner always come back to check again with purchasing team about its material status as well as other related production stages to see where are production now Actually, they should now and have this status on hand as they are the controller for it

Ms Tram from customer service department also shared that:

CP will not chase for material until CS chasing for the shipment as they think if CS team keep silent and don‘t chase production team, meaning this order is not urgent, we can ship it late

Without following up and controlling production closely, the factory is always not initiative to deal with troubles Until the problems being happening, they start to solve

it while this is what usually happens in daily production

Production planning: The factory has to arrange production according to schedule

which has been setting up can confirming with client

However, in production team, in order to meet factory output target they have arrange producing the easy time first to get their weekly and monthly target despite what ship date this POs have been scheduled So, the products already produced are unable to ship as earlier than schedule while the needed items still have not finished It causing for the not on time of delivery

SALE TEAM:

Confirming schedule: In order to confirm schedule to client, customer service staffs

who should know what customer want and what our company can afford them Before informing with client the factory confirmed ship date, CS should rechecking with CP

to know why we cannot meet their requested ship date, why it is sooner or later then

negotiate to have the best ship date and informing back to CP for the unified recording and following up

However, not everyone is doing it correctly According to Ms Anh-Customer service leader, she has shared that:

I have to remind the team many times that be careful before confirming the ship date with client, we need to check where it is reasonable and workable or not It should meet customer requested first and the loading ability is acceptable Also, the record between our system and customer system should be the same, later if there is any things happen, the evaluation is clear and equally But seem like they always forget to do that, just sending whatever CP confirmed to them, or even don‘t send it So, customer‘s record is on this date but we are processing on another date Finally, the result is that we have to air ship for the late POs or keeping stock for the early one

Building up shipping plan: In order to build the appropriate loading plan, CS team

should be take care once they receiving order and confirming the ship date for customer as well When they confirm ship date, have to make sure that the container is being full and meeting customer‘s request ship date If customer separate the POs in to many different ship date but it cannot make a full container, we can explain with them

to have the combination It will help us much to avoid the LCL shipment as well as early or late shipment

Same with what we have got from Ms Anh, she said that her staffs just someone checking and doing like that Normally they just confirm with client whatever they got from CP, don‘t care about the result, finally they have to face with the difficulties case once arranging shipment

Following up production status: The loading plan should be built according not only

to the ship date but also according to production status It is required that the customer service have to check and follow up with production team before they make it causing

in production, not 100% POs are running on time, so that we have to check to arrange

it reasonably

However, most of CS does not checking it carefully before they build up their load plan and sending the booking for IM-EX team Finally, once the container come in, the actual production is not matched with what they have booked, they have to change to loading list and getting approval from customer again for the changing, sometimes it takes time for

getting confirmation from customer, the container cannot catch up the cut off time of the vessel, that is the reason why we have to ship late-Ms An from packing team has shared

PURCHASING AND OUTSOURCING TEAM:

Confirming material schedule: what should material team do is that they have to

negotiate with suppliers to have the best ship date which can meet customer‘s requested ship date This is required that purchasing team and production team, sale team should be coordinated closely to know what and how should to do

However, whenever receiving order request from sale team, they automatically sending to supplier for ordering and confirming back to CP the schedule that they got from supplier without concerning whether this schedule can afford customer‘s requested ship date or not- Ms Tram from CS team has shared like that

Following up material status: Material schedule is affected directly to production

schedule, if there is any change in material arrival date, production ship date also being changed accordingly So, material team have to following up their order closely and informing production team as well as sale team in time if there is any changing with its schedule

However, material team just checking with their suppliers whenever production team and sale team chasing for any material which does not arrive on time as scheduled- Ms Anh from CS team has shared like that

Figure 2: Problem validation

Departments Criteria Requirement Failure Problem validation

PRODUCTION

TEAM

Confirming ship date

Pay attention on:

 Factory output target

 Material schedule

 Poor knowledge of planning => Setting up inappropriate schedule, Arrange to produce inappropriate items

 Lack of following up in production => Cannot control production to be on time with original schedule, Cannot control materials/components to be arrived

on time => Materials/ components arrived late, Production late

Following up production

Closely with production team &

material Coordinate with sale team

Not coordinate with sale team

Production planning

According with confirmed schedule Priority doing for easy items to get

output target Shipping

 Poor knowledge of planning => Confirming inappropriate schedule, arrange to ship inappropriate items

 Lack of following up in production => Arrange to ship inappropriate items

Building up shipping plan

According to the agreed ship date &

production status

According to personal recording

Following up production status

Closely with production team Not closely with production team

and customer

PURCHASING/ Confirming According to customer requested ship According to supplier‘s confirmed  Poor knowledge of

OUTSOURCING

TEAM

inappropriate material schedule

 Lack of following up in production => Materials/ components arrived late

Following up material status

Closely to catch up production schedule

Not following up closely

(Source: interview results)

Figure 3: Initial cause effect map

ORGANIZATIONAL SYMPTEMS

of planning

Lack of following up

in production

Setting up inappropriate schedule

Cannot control materials/components

to be arrived on time

Cannot control production to be on time with original schedule

Materials/

components arrived late

Production late

Arrange to produce inappropriate items

Arrange to ship inappropriate items

Late delivery

1.4 Potential cause of problem and the justification

1.4.1 Lack of cross-functional knowledge

A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal It may include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human resources departments Typically, it includes employees from all levels of an organization Members may also come from outside an organization (in particular, from suppliers, key customers, or consultants)

Cross-functional teams often function as self-directed teams assigned to a specific task which calls for the input and expertise of numerous departments Assigning a task to a team composed of multi-disciplinary individuals increases the level of creativity and reduces groupthink Each member offers an alternative perspective to the problem and potential solution to the task In business today, innovation is a leading competitive advantage and cross-functional teams promote innovation through a creative collaboration process Members of a cross-functional team must be well versed in multi-tasking as they are simultaneously responsible for their cross-functional team duties as well as their normal day-to-day work tasks

In order to build a cross-functional team, each members should prepare enough their cross-functional knowledge So that they are able to adapt with all the requirements or any specific appointed tasks The innovation idea should be required for raising- up ideas when the organization is collecting as well as focusing on resolving any trouble

or trying to achieving any specific target

However, as we have been known so far, in typical manufacturing organisations or in Rochdale Spears Ltd, company in generally, functional units have their own goals As there is no single functional unit responsible for on-time delivery, in traditional organisations on-time delivery has received minimal attention While the sale team is trying to serve customer by good service with 100% of shipments being shipped on time, production team is trying to complete their weekly, monthly output target despite of the shipment is on time or not, or whether it is what customer need or not The discrepancy between the departments has leaded the company to the results with low shipping performance

1.4.2 Company’s service innovation strategy

The requirement for the company is that need to focus more on service and delivery of good Currently, the factory‘s just paying attention on developing new products with new and fashionable designs, improve quality of products and trying all their best to achieve the company output target Without concerning on quality of service and shipping performance, it has frustrated the customers by the too late shipment and we are also losing some of our important customers due to the poor service

The emerging importance of service innovation for manufacturing company cannot be overlooked It is clear that when products or services become more homogeneous

or an original competitive advantage cannot be sustained, service innovation becomes an effective way for a company to accelerate its growth rate and profit-ability (Berry et al 2006)

Most prior innovation literature has treated ―service innovation‖ as product (i.e., goods) innovation However, beside the good and quality products, delivery service play an important role in developing the growing of a company as well as it is the chance connect customer with factory closely and closely Without the good service from company, how the products can be arrived on customer‘s hand

1.4.3 Personality difference

Collaborations are not one-person shows, or a theater for the ambitious They are a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship of two or more people or teams to achieve common goals

More often these days, collaborative efforts require new teams with different skill sets

to achieve a specific goal Coming together for the first time, they will be unfamiliar with their personalities and level of expertise It may take time to resolve initial teething problems

All staffs in the company, they are not come from the same place, the same previous company our experience in furniture speciality An example, in the Customer service department there are variety of people from variety of level and experience Someone come from garment industry, other is from logistic and other from furniture We are together working for the same goal and target that how can improve the company

performance But how to work, what should to do and how are they doing, it is depend

on their personal skill Some people are showing good performance but others are not

Ms Linh Le, she is from garment industry, with more than 8 years of experience but she is unable to handle the order smoothly Despite how hard she is trying but seems like it is not successfully Later, her customer has been transfer to other staff, she has handled it well and received good comments from customer for the improvements-Ms Lan Anh has shared This example is just about the qualification, skill of working Other case has make the team cannot come together due to difference realization Whenever we raising any idea or solutions to solve any trouble, the most important thing is that having the agreement from all of our colleagues But it is not easy to have understanding from all members Just one person do not agree and follow with what we suggest, the result cannot be achieved

According to Ms Hien leader of customer service in RD team she has shares: Many time we proposed the new solution to improve the working flow in our system, it seems like I have

to take more than one month to convince my team member They are afraid of the new

changing, so they don‘t want to corporate

From above points of view, it can be seen that ―Lack of cross-functional knowledge‖ has the strongest affection on shipping performance of the company, thus RSC needs

to focus more on improving ―Cross-functional knowledge‖ to improve shipping performance of the company

Figure 4: Final cause and effect map

of planning

Lack of following up

in production

Setting up inappropriate schedule

Cannot control materials/components

to be arrived on time

Cannot control production to be on time with original schedule

Materials/

components arrived late

Production late

Arrange to produce inappropriate items

Arrange to ship inappropriate items

Late delivery