Mean Well Company
Brief History
Meanwell is a limited company that leads in switching power supplies to various places worldwide. The company was established in 1982, with an initial capital of NT$ 1,000,000, and its current location is in Taiwan (Global Sources, 3). This company acquired the ISO-9001 certification in 1994.
Company’s Goal
The company’s central objective is to provide services to the satisfaction of the customer as well as provision of total quality assurance. Meanwell Company therefore ensures that they offer more personalized and quality services to the customers. It is as a result of this ultimate goal that the company is dedicated to following stringent procedures of designing, going through design verification procedures, component selection, design quality control checks, and mass production (Global Sources 6).
Interview conducted
In a bid to understand the company and kits operations, an interview was conducted with the company’s manager in charge of exporting products to foreign branches, Linda Chou. Several questions were asked including company’s products, decision-making patterns, transportation modes, product pricing, quality control, government intervention, sales, marketing strategies, and future prospects of the company among other questions. The responses and analysis of these questions are discussed in the subsequent section.
Supply Chain Management
The Products Offered by Meanwell Company
The company deals with a variety of power accessory products, which include battery chargers, AC/DC switching power supplies, DC/AC inverters, and DC/DC converters. All these products are offered in diversified quality models that are widely applied in communication, automation, and office automation fields, health industry as well as LED lighting, etc (Global Sources 7).
Method of Transportation Used
Mean well company uses vehicle trucks for delivery of their goods to other local distribution centers. For export purposes, the company uses aircrafts and shipping as means of transportation to foreign countries (Global Sources 13).
The Application of Logistics and Supply Chain Management Concept
The logistics model focuses on a sole business enterprise and works towards attainment of more efficient logistic strategies acquired through both internal and external planning and control. When various enterprises come together and form assimilation, a supply chain is created. Supply chain management refers to the management of relationships that have evolved due to amalgamation of businesses in an effort to deliver faster and more efficient services to their consumers (Jespersen and Larsen, pp 13-14).
Meanwell company ensures that they have a large stock in store to enable their customers do access these products conveniently and on time. Meanwell is strongly dedicated to providing faster local services to its distribution centers and end users. With a special focus on this, Meanwell is dedicated to providing reliable and long-term personalized services as well as enjoy negotiated costs of products. In addition, Meanwell ensures that each service or product provided has thoroughly been evaluated.
Some of the key factors put under consideration every time a given decision is being executed include the initial cost of goods sold, the prevailing foreign exchange rate, the freight or shipping cost, as well as the implication due to transportation of logistics. Mean well normally fixes prices to their commodities. The factors that they consider in price determination are whether there is stiff competition in the market for the commodity.
Secondly, they consider they consider the cost of goods sold. Under this, they put into consideration the cost of the raw materials used to come up with the product .etc. They also put into consideration the cost of labor and other related costs incurred to manufacture or produce the commodity.
Price determination is also dependent on the rate at which foreign money are being valued. Additionally, the Mean well directors evaluate the response gathered from its customers regarding a given product to fix the price of their goods (Trent and Monczka, 30).
Quality Control
Mean Well applies quality standards to be observed while manufacturing or processing its products. This is of significant importance since it helps provide good quality and uniform products.
The quality of their commodities is evaluated by use of a quality mechanism in the production process. Meanwell ensures that they manufacture or generate products of similar quality standards by including the R/D model of designing, production, selling procedures, etc. The quality assurance of Meanwell’s products is determined through ISO-9001 certification.
Moreover, Meanwell maintains control over its laborers by use of standard operating procedures (SOP). This regulatory measure helps to regulate the quality of labor offered by the staff in order to ensure that tasks are performed in the more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, they use previously recorded and analyzed statistical data to regulate and control the standard quality of their goods (Mentzer, 9-10).
Government Involvement
The state government plays an important role in regulating or controlling the operations of the company. For instance, the government was involved in provision of security of their products. This resulted in changes effected on the company’s international logistics as well as the supply chain management.
The government regulates the customs duties extracted from exporting of products. Moreover, it ensures that all the required documents for shipment and freight are available and that all the requirements are met. In case any of these requirements is not met, the government holds the goods in their custody until they comply with the set regulatory measures. In such a case, the delivery or production process is delayed (Mentzer, 11).
Sales and Marketing Strategies
Mean Well has adopted an Interactive Marketing Strategy which is a customer-focused concept aimed at establishing transactions between the chains and potential customers. The company has gone online in advertising and marketing its products and services, which has yielded better returns than even television and print. The company is currently working towards availing the sales representatives detailed software data to equip them with marketing activities and strategies to ensure they yield better results (Mentzer, 12).
The Future of the Company
The company intends to expand its trading foci to international levels. It is working towards establishing more and more integrations with different companies of other continents. Mean Well is determined to open new branches all over the world where each branch will have its individual marketing strategy. This marketing concept will be based on the increasingly competitive business environment so that the company will stand out to offer exceptional services and products (Jespersen and Larsen, pp 8-9).
The company intends to lay emphasis on product competition as well as cut back on the cost of transportation. This calls for strategic planning and organization by the company’s management team. In this regard, the company is proposing the use of air transportation for less consignments as well as emergency operations while the huge and bulky goods are transported by ship. This will cut on the cost of labor as well as shipment charges (Trent and Monczka, 32).
Recommendation
I recommend the adoption of the logistics and supply chain management tools early enough in any business enterprise to immune the organization of any complexities that may be experienced as trading tends towards increased competition and cooperation. From what has been gathered as a result of incorporating these concepts, it is evident that they can be applied to any enterprise to boost its performance (Trent and Monczka, 27).
This marketing concept will be based on the increasingly competitive business environment so that the company will stand out to offer exceptional services and products. As a consequence, the company intends to lay emphasis on product competition as well as cut back on the cost of transportation. With this insight in mind, the company will least be assured of continued growth and development of their company.
However, this calls for strategic planning and organization by the company’s management team. In this regard, the company is proposing the use of air transportation for less consignments as well as emergency operations while the huge and bulky goods are transported by ship. This will cut on the cost of labor as well as shipment charges (Jespersen and Larsen, pp 8-10).
Conclusion
The use of logistics and supply chain management tools will help ease the operations of the growing and competitive market even as trading tends towards globalization. These concepts will provide solutions to the problems accrued due to business amalgamations and help to deliver faster and more efficient services to their consumers at more customer-friendly prices (Mentzer, 12).
Works Cited
Global Sources. Global Sources electronic components. Singapore: Trade Media Ltd Publishers. 2007.
Jespersen, Birgit and Larsen, Tage. Supply chain management: in theory and practice. VA: Copenhagen Business School Press DK Publisher. 2005.
Mentzer, John T. Supply chain management. Edition 2. London: SAGE Publisher. 2001.
Trent, Robert and Monczka, Robert. International Purchasing and Global Sourcing—what are the Differences? Journal of Supply Chain Management, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp 26–37. 2003.