Luxury Hair Corp. (LHC) is a wholesaler of hair supplies to hairdressers, beauty salons, and barbers across Eastern Canada. Retail products, such as hair styling devices and accessories, are purchased from manufacturers in Asia and resold to LHCs customers. For these items, the organization uses an off-the-shelf inventory management system for tracking its purchases. Each quarter, products are counted, and the system is updated for actual inventory levels. Products are stored in a warehouse that is attached to LHCs factory.

LHC also purchases raw material ingredients for shampoos, soaps, and conditioners from suppliers in the United States. These products are manufactured and bottled in LHCs Hamilton, Ontario factory. Currently, raw materials are not tracked, but are instead expensed based on the amounts purchased and used from monthly estimates. This has made it difficult for LHC to create a manufacturing schedule that can be followed because supervisors are not aware of how much of each raw material is on hand. As a result, LHC had experienced several manufacturing delays for certain popular products. The organizations workforce includes buyers, manufacturing employees at its factory, salespeople, and administrative employees. Customers place orders either through LHCs salespeople or through an online store. LHC utilizes third-party delivery companies to ship its products directly from its warehouse to customers. Invoices are manually created using an Excel template and mailed to customers at the end of each month. Payment is due in full in 60 days and most of LHCs customers send payments by cheque. Required: a) Describe each of the steps of LHCs supply chain. b) Discuss two ways that supply chain management could provide value to LHC. c) Discuss how LHC could use digital payment systems to integrate IT into its supply chain. d) LHC is considering implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to better manage its supply chain. i. Describe one way that LHC could use an ERP system in its supply chain. ii. Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of ERP systems.