· How Walmart manage the interrelationships among strategic support and operational logistics

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Provide ONE 2-3 page paper addressing both of the following topics.

· Point out Walmart’s continuous improvement tools and techniques used in problem solving supporting sustainable operations. This should include topics such as lean techniques, quality management, TQM and JIT (LOG310).

· How does Walmart manage the interrelationships among strategic support and operational logistics as related to the logistics functions of business involved in the movement and storage of supplies, work-in-progress, and finished goods? (LOG320).

 

Sample Solution

Walmart is a global leader in the retail industry and as such, has utilized various Continuous Improvement (CI) tools and techniques in order to support their operations and ensure sustainable success. These CI tools have been fundamental in allowing Walmart to reduce costs, improve efficiency, encourage innovation, and promote social responsibility. Some of these techniques include Lean Techniques, Quality Management (QM), Total Quality Management (TQM), and Just-in-Time (JIT).

Lean Techniques are focused on identifying areas of waste within an organization’s processes that can be eliminated or reduced through the use of internal resources (Goncalves & Santos 2019). This type of CI tool encourages organizations to work more efficiently by streamlining operations without compromising quality standards. Quality management is another important part of Walmart’s process improvement strategy which involves establishing standards for how products should be produced in order to meet customer expectations and maximize value for stakeholders (Carrillo et al., 2018). Total quality management further emphasizes the importance of implementing quality into all parts of production process from front line employees up to senior managers so that everyone is held accountable for product output quality levels.(Kumar et al., 2020)

Finally, JIT inventory systems help organizations maintain optimal levels of stock while avoiding excessive costs associated with storing large amounts material that could go unused(Mackey 2017). By adopting this technique they are able to keep inventory low while still being able to provide customers with desired items quickly reducing long term expenses related to unnecessary storage cost as well as cutting down on waiting times when ordering new materials.

NAc can be sub-divided into two regions: the core and the shell. Both regions have different input and output projections (Zahm, 2000) and thought to play different roles in reward pathway (Ito et al., 2004). Recent studies have also reported on different dendritic compartments specifically the proximal and distal (Spruston, 2008). Cocaine regulation of dendritic spines can only be observed in thin, highly motile spine (Kasai et al., 2010) which were thought to be relevant to learning (Moser et al., 1994; Dumitriu et al., 2010) and addiction (Shen et al., 2009; LaPlant et al., 2010). Cocaine exposure caused an increase in spine density in the shell region but a decrease in proximal MSNs in the core region which is seen to be far more enduring (Dumitriu et al., 2012). This enduring change in core reciprocates the idea that shell is involved in addiction development while core in the learning of the addiction or long-term potentiation (Di Chiara, 2002; Ito et al., 2004; Meredith et al., 2008). In a study done by Kourrich and Thomas (2009), however, showed an increase in core MSNs and a decrease in shell MSNs raising the possibility that spine regulation may be compensating the changes in MSNs or spine regulation may be causing a homeostatic tuning of MSNs excitability. Few studies showed homeostatic increase in MSNs excitability following spine downregulation (Azdad et al., 2009; Ishikawa et al., 2009; Huang et al., 2011) supporting the latter but the clear association between both processes is still unknown. A possible mechanism behind the selective downregulation of core MSNs could be dopamine since cocaine withdrawal decreases dopamine levels (Parsons et al., 1991; Baker et al., 2003). Further support to this could be from the higher convergence of the dual glutamatergic and dopaminergic pathways in the core (Zahm and Brog, 1992).

Other than that, a study has found that there is also structural plasticity in input regions to the nucleus accumbens. These inputs include the ventral tegmental area (VTA) which is thoug

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