OPS 425 Week 4 Technology and Responsibility Projects Example

Loggers in the Boxes and Standards on the Farms: Managing a Technology Project and a Social Responsibility Project in a Flower Supply Chain

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

OPS/425: Project Management in Supply Chain Management

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Andes Bloom Imports, its farms, systems and figures are composites written for a model paper.

The Doral flower importer in this course, Andes Bloom Imports, is building a bouquet assembly facility for a grocery chain's branded line. Two further supply chain projects were deferred in Week 1 and now begin: a cold-chain tracking system and a farm standards program. Both depend on farms and other partners changing what they do, which makes them different from building a facility. This paper plans them.

Project 1: Cold-Chain Tracking

Objective: within 12 months, track temperature from the farm cooler to the grocery chain's distribution center for at least 80 percent of boxes from the top 20 farms, find where temperature abuse occurs and reduce it. Flowers held above about 40 degrees Fahrenheit for long periods lose vase life quickly, and Andes Bloom suspects that delays at the origin airport and in the inspection queue in Miami are the main problem, but it has no data.

Scope: reusable Bluetooth temperature loggers placed in a sample of boxes at each farm, readers at the farm cooler, the origin airport cargo terminal, Andes Bloom's receiving dock and the grocery chain's distribution centers; a shared web portal showing each shipment's temperature history; training for farm and dock staff; and a return process for loggers. Out of scope: changes to airline handling, which Andes Bloom will pursue once data exist.

Partners: farms, freight forwarders at origin, Andes Bloom's receiving team, the grocery chain's distribution centers.

Planning for Adoption

The technology will create value only if farm and dock staff place, scan and return loggers reliably. Davis (1989) found that people's acceptance of information technology was strongly related to how useful they perceived it to be and how easy they found it to use, with usefulness the stronger predictor. The plan applies both. For usefulness, each farm sees its own boxes' temperature histories and a monthly comparison with other farms, anonymized, so a farm can show buyers its cooling performance. For ease of use, loggers activate automatically, scanning takes one tap on a phone app in Spanish and returning loggers uses prepaid bags in each shipment. A pilot with five farms will test the process before rollout.

A logger that sits in a drawer at the farm records nothing about the cooler's temperature.

Project 2: Farm Standards Program

Objective: within two years, bring all 40 supplying farms to certification under a recognized labor and environmental standard for flower farms, as two of Andes Bloom's retail customers now require. The standard covers working hours and wages, health and safety in greenhouses, chemical handling and water use.

Scope: a gap assessment at each farm by an independent auditor; improvement plans agreed with each farm; support, including training on pesticide handling and record keeping; cost sharing for audits and some improvements; certification audits; and annual surveillance.

Partners: farms, the certification body, retail customers, workers' representatives.

Carter and Rogers (2008) proposed that sustainable supply chain management integrates social, environmental and economic goals, supported by risk management, transparency, strategy and culture. Seuring and Müller (2008), reviewing the literature, distinguished supplier management for risks and performance from management of sustainable products and noted that pressure from customers and regulators often drives such programs, while cooperation with suppliers determines whether they succeed.

Sharing Costs and Benefits

Farms bear most of the improvement cost but receive few of the commercial benefits, which accrue to retailers and Andes Bloom. The plan therefore shares costs: Andes Bloom pays for gap assessments and half of certification audits, offers a price premium of about 3 percent on certified stems and commits to longer purchase agreements with certified farms. Farms that need capital improvements, such as protective equipment storage, can receive advance payments repaid through stem deliveries.

Verification

Certification requires third-party audits, and Andes Bloom adds unannounced visits by its own sourcing staff twice a year and an anonymous worker hotline run by an independent organization. Self-reports alone are not accepted.

What the Pilot Farms Taught

The five-farm pilot surfaced problems the plan had not foreseen. At one farm, loggers were placed in boxes after the boxes had been cooled for hours, so the first reading looked perfect even when the cooler had failed overnight; the instruction now places loggers before cooling. At another, packing staff worried that the data would be used to blame them for losses; the farm manager and Andes Bloom's sourcing director held a meeting to explain that the goal was to find delays at the airport. Two farms asked to see their own data daily rather than monthly, which the portal now offers.

How the Two Projects Connect

The projects reinforce each other. Temperature data help certified farms show retailers the quality of their handling, and the standards program's training sessions are a natural place to teach logger use. Andes Bloom will run both through the same sourcing team and the same quarterly farm reviews, so farms experience one partnership rather than two separate demands.

Measuring Success Differently

The tracking project succeeds when loggers are used and data change behavior: share of boxes tracked, data completeness, time boxes spend above 40 degrees and, eventually, vase life gains. The standards program succeeds when farms are certified and conditions improve: number of farms certified, corrective actions closed, workplace injury rates and water use per stem. Neither project's success can be judged by schedule and budget alone.

Risks

For tracking, the main risks are logger loss and poor scanning compliance; responses are a deposit system with farms and monthly feedback. For standards, the main risk is farms dropping out because of cost; responses are cost sharing and longer agreements.

Conclusion

Andes Bloom's tracking and standards projects both require partners to change, so their plans center on adoption and verification. The tracking system is designed to be useful and easy for farms, with a pilot first. The standards program shares costs, rewards certified farms and verifies through third parties. Each is measured by what it actually changes in the chain, not just by delivery.

References

Carter, C. R., & Rogers, D. S. (2008). A framework of sustainable supply chain management: Moving toward new theory. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 38(5), 360-387. https://doi.org/10.1108/09600030810882816

Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008

Seuring, S., & Müller, M. (2008). From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(15), 1699-1710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2008.04.020