Your responses to EACH should be in the form of a mini-essay, approximately 750 words in length, and include APPROPRIATE EXAMPLES to emphasize the points you are making.

1. Discuss the concept of a supply chain in a manufacturing business, taking care to include in your response, Upstream Activities, Downstream Activities and Information Flows

2. Explore the characteristics of Batch Manufacturing and Production Lines

3. Root Cause Analysis is an Improvement Technique. Discuss

4. Examine Planning and Control in manufacturing business from the perspective of Master Scheduling, Materials Requirement Planning), and Production Activity Control & Vendor Order Management.

Supply chain management refers to the close linkage and coordination of activities involved in buying, making, and moving a product. It integrates business processes to speed information, product, and fund flows up and down a supply chain to reduce time, redundant effort, and inventory costs.

           The supply chain is a network of organizations and business processes for procuring raw materials, transforming these materials into intermediate and finished products, and distributing the finished products to customers. It links suppliers, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, retail outlets, and customers to supply goods and services from source through consumption. Materials, information, and payments flow through the supply chain in both directions. Goods start out as raw materials and move through logistics and production systems until they reach customers. Returned items flow in the reverse direction from the buyer back to the seller.