This report is about Coles retailer industry, which is written about the technologies throughout Supply Chain and Logistic network with Linfox’s distribution center. Furthermore, this paper is written to forecast, improve shortcoming in the chain between Coles and Linfox. Along with that, there are conceptions about new technologies and systems impacting Supply Chain and Logistics network.

Introduction

On 7th November 2019, Group 4 had the opportunity to visit one of Coles-Linfox Distribution Centre located at 485 Dohertys road in Truganina, Victoria. Under the guidance of instructors Himanshu Shee and Tharaka De Vass , Group 4 found that the area of distribution center is 80,000 meters square. Excluding the distribution center in Truganina, the distribution center has 47,500 pick and resource locations and promote their warehousing services to  suburban Coles stores in Victoria, Australia. The  distribution centre in Truganina was opened in 2012, making it one of the company’s newest Distribution Centers in Australia. This makes Coles acting logistics company, Linfox, one of the largest logistic companies across Asia-Pacific with multi-international employees working to deliver food, resources and medicines throughout many countries in Asia and Australia.

A Brief Organisational History of Coles-Linfox Distribution Centre

Besides Woolworths, Coles is one of the largest supermarkets in Australia serving Australia’s people. In the meantime, Coles is still dominating the Australian’s market, and standing at strong supermarket industry in Australia. In April 2014, Coles turned 100 years old and became one of the oldest businesses in Australia (Coles n.d).

On 9 April 1914, Coles was first introduced to Aussie families and the Australian people in Smith Street, Collingwood, Victoria by a young G.J. Coles (Colesgroup n.d). At the beginning of the 1930s, Coles was in financial distress due to the impact of the Great Depression. Despite having such vigorous economic times, Coles had donated a large amount of their earnings to charities including hospitals, nursing homes and relieved funds for the unemployed (Coles n.d). Also from Coles (n.d), G.J. Coles stated that charity was part of their business and  remain bonded with  society. That commitment still remains in existence to this day. During World War II, many married women tended to buy more ready-made foodstuffs and deli items, leading to an escalation in Coles’ store branches (Colesgroup n.d). In 1946, Coles sold electrical appliances due to the booming consumer confidence  during post-war Australia. After two years, Coles opened its first cosmetics range, and invited celebrities such as Doris Day, Arlene Dahl and Eleanor Parker, who played the role of the faces of the campaign (Colesgroup n.d).

In the middle of 1950s, Coles’ stores were remodeled into self-service stores, which would set the first step into the 21st century supermarket form (Colesgroup n.d). By the last few years of 50s, Coles set milestones as diversity store and view of becoming Australia’s strongest food retailer, along with new concept of logistics, warehouse management and distribution systems (Coles n.d). In 1960, in addition to Australia changing period, Edgar Barton Coles, who had been Managing Director of Coles since WWII, was going to evolve a group of supermarkets that would list from household’s furniture to fruit, designating it potential to get it all in one trip (Coles n.d). In the beginning of 70s, Coles focused on  value, usefulness, modernization, and published creatively the improvement of home brand food products, helped to decrease the expense of groceries (Coles n.d). Thus, discounting program was launched in 1971, and applied permanently on the prices of 7000 items (Coles n.d).

The period of time from 1980 to 1989 had marked a new turning point for Coles with the liquor interests Liquor land, Vintage Cellars, and the procurement of Bi-Lo (Coles n.d). Particularly, on 25 July 1985, operation between Coles and Myer Emporium Ltd Group, who is the profession of model chains and the branch store chain, was born (Coles n.d). Hence, Prime Minister Bob Hawke released the Coles Myer joint headquarters  in Tooronga, Victoria. the 90s was the outburst of  World Wide Web and dot-com, new technologies kept rising with a mid-blowing speed. Follow with that period of time, Coles also adopted new technology to update inventory tracking, which saved quite an amount of cost of more than 6000 product lines (Colesgroup n.d). Besides, in 1993 Coles launched the flybuys system permitting customers of Shell, National Australia Bank and Coles Myer to earn points towards great deal of rewards. As a result, in the same year, 3.5 million Australians attended flybuys membership (Coles n.d). In 2006, Coles sold Myer, and returned as generally food retailer. The next year, Coles was won by an Australian company, Wesfarmers (Coles n.d).

The flow of products, information and funds along the supply chain

Supply chain is the process beginning from merchant through manufacturing and distributing to mollify customers’ needs and gain value for businesses (Ian, 2017). Also according to Ian (2017), Supply Chain management is the planning and flow of products through converting materials between number of parties to transfer goods and services to end customers. Thus, Supply Chain is defined as the progress of managing the completion of products from raw materials process, and controlling the flow of products.

Information flow of Supply Chain is defined as the information and data movement in the whole process of Supply Chain network. Information flow plays the aspects of receiving and sending data or information which are related to parties in Supply Chain network of products, goods, and materials. To put it differently, information flow consists of the inquiries for citation, non-current asset orders, schedules, modification requests, and statements of disagreement for suppliers from customers’ sides. Along with these perspectives of customers, information flow can classified from producers’ displays, which are put into proposals of businesses, verification of purchase orders, dispatch details, reports for inventory, invoices, etc (Tutorialspoint n.d).

Product flow of Supply Chain can be specified as material flow of the whole Supply Chain network. In the concept of Supply Chain, materials will be transported to make products in certain places through distributing, warehousing or dealing methods (Tutorialspoint n.d). In other words, the flow of products is a concept that represents the placement of  products, materials or services. According to Sweeney (2006), the flow of product has two types: upstream and downstream. The upstream displays products, services or materials are contributed from producers, manufacturers, and distributors to end-consumer in the chain. On the other hand, downstream presents the flow of those approach with reverse direction, which means there are problems happening with final consumers and those conceptions (Sweeney 2016), ( Gupta n.d).

According to Huff and Roger (2015), Supply chain finance is the concept that business can raise funds through its Supply Chain relationship. Thus, the concept is including: expanding and reducing inventories, loss, income, and assets. Moreover, this concept of funding will decide the finance of Supply Chain in organization to secure the capability to meet variable investment (Sweeney 2016). Last but not least, all transaction activities or actions take place  in Supply Chain network which are related to the movement of money among stakeholders, defined as trade financing or more clarified as Supply Chain finance. In consequence, these actions and activities are including the statement of managing, planning, and controlling (More, Basu, & Preetam 2013).

Products, customers and suppliers of Coles

Coles Group Limited Ltd is supported by the substantial and cooperative relationships with Australian farmers, growers, and food processors (Colesgroup n.d). Coles’s suppliers can also be easily described as suppliers who provide goods, and products to Coles by manufacturing and packing lines. In the meantime, Coles is reported to have more than 7,000 suppliers (Colesgroup 2019). Coles is listed as one of the largest businesses in Australia among Woolworths, Aldi, Metcash, etc. Unquestionably, Coles has an extensive of supermarket stores, convenience stores, and liquor stores, which are scattered around Australia’s lands (Coles 2019). Undoubtedly, Australian and Australia’s society are major money-making fields for Coles from the beginning of its business (Coles 2019).

Supply chain diagram

Coles’s transportation network and transporters used

Coles transportation network is decided through distribution center called Linfox Group Ltd as a third party contributing Logistic service throughout Australia. Today, Linfox is a reliable logistics company that transfers goods and products from Coles’s suppliers to end-customers.

Back in 1956, Linfox was a really small company in Melbourne, Victoria, which had one truck and was found by Lindsay Fox (Hartley,2014). Since 1963, Coles had appeared as one of Linfox ’s longest term customers, and been kept succeeding relationship since then (Linfox n.d).

Suppliers of Coles will provide goods, materials and products to Linfox’s distribution center.. Also, Coles will be providing the orders of customers which either way is domestic or international., the timeframe of each component of transaction Then, Linfox will receive order via electronic, and physical ones will be delivered. Linfox will be in charge of transporting to customers, warehouse operations, and inventory operations.

The product transaction of Linfox are by freights through railways, roads, and seas (Linfox n.d). Along with transportation, these aspects are the concept  that will be used as movement network of Linfox during transactions (Linfox,n.d):

Property foreseeing

Inventory investigating and planning

Diplomatic transport network modelling

Route analytics, optimisation, and planning.

Technologies connecting all those partners along the chain including the transporters

For Linfox ’s distribution center, there are three ways of connecting all partners along the chain included transporters, which are: HR systems, physical mail, and email.

HR technology

HR system is stood for Human resource system, which is the power of human beings in organizations, businesses, and companies. This system is the critical system deciding the flow of every business in every network. During the trip to Linfox ‘s distribution center in Truganina, Linfox has been focusing on HR system which helps improving the system with a variety of programs, such as: Reward & recognition, Healthy Fox, Monthly safety award, etc. Human power appears in every aspect from producing to end-customers, humans are optimal in helping succeeding business with innovation, efficiency, and flexible structure (S. Anastasiou 2012). Even with receiving, retrieving and despatching of merchandise, HR plays the main role in appropriating the technologies throughout the whole chain.

The Physical technology

Physical mail is carried out by Australia Post to sort out mail in physical form.The sorted mail, which can appear as  envelops or parcels, will be sent to Coles distribution centre and from there onwards Linfox will handle them according to Coles mail orders. While taking customers’ orders from Coles, Linfox will also receive the physical mail form of it in the earliest time.

The Email Technology

The replacement of supply chain technology connects the various entities closely. In addition to HR technology, Email technology is also a strategy for information sharing among partner companies in the supply chain, and a channel to help companies interact with business partners. In the development of the supply chain, the upgrade of email technology has covered communication, supply processes, and decision-making (J. Sun & Teng, 2012). Linfox uses Email technology to coordinate and make decisions with partners, and this includes real-time tracking. They scan the goods out of the warehouse for barcodes to confirm the permit information such as the shipping location, total product volume and buyer information. And update the status of the goods out of the warehouse in the system. Secondly, during the entire transportation process, satellites are used to track the transportation process of the goods, and convey the transportation status of goods to both buyers and sellers. In fact, the kind of information communication intervened by the Internet can promote partnerships in the supply chain, which can help buyers and sellers reduce costs and deepen mutual trust and database sharing (Singh & Teng, 2016).

It must be typed in 1500 words for Executive Summary, Introduction, Background of the organisation history, flow of products along supply chain, supply chain diagram, Woolworths transportationetwork and the transportation used,  applications and  technologies connecting partners along the supply chain and National and international supply chain.  Please do not copy from the internet, you must write everything from you own words and paraphrase in essay style report. You must include in-text references as well a reference list in bottom of the page with the name of the Author and the articles. 

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