NEWSPA PER SUPPLY CHAINS AGENDA SUPPLY CHAINSTHE UNIVERSAL DEFINITION NEWSPAPER CHALLENGES NEWSPAPER SUPPLY CHAIN FINDING

DING THE VALUENEWSPAPER SUPPLY CHAINS NEWSPRINT & INK ADVERTISING & NEWS PRESS OPERATIONS PACKAGING OPERATIONS DISTRIBUTION OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TYING IT TOGETHER SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT GENERAL DEFINITION Supply chain management is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies. It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory while maintaining necessary product availability. Supply chain management flows can be divided into three main flows: The product flow The information flow

 The finances flow

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT NEWSPA PER CHALLENGES Newspapers are a difficult fit for traditional supply chain models and suppliers. Newspapers speak a foreign language, with each property adopting its own dialect. Complex inbound strategy for raw materials is replaced by commodity buying of newsprint and ink. The intangible and unpredictable flow of news and information defines production parameters. Product size, shape, and configuration vary from day-to-day and week-toweek. Time available from production to useful consumer delivery is shorter than any other industry. All critical distribution is performed at night, in predominantly short shifts.

N E W S PA P E R S U P P LY C H A I N S F I N D I N G T H E VA L U E
Newspapers require unique definition of their product, information, and financial flows to be adapted to supply chain and other quantifiable management programs. The primary supply chain flow for newspapers is the outbound product flow and its associated information flow. Newspapers have successfully separated subscriber and advertiser cash flow timing from product delivery. As such, all financial flows within the newspaper supply chain are either discretionary (how much newsprint

and ink inventory is carried), or direct costs resulting from the supply chain in place. The primary components affecting the total supply chain cost for a newspaper are: Inbound Information: advertising, news, editorial, pagination Press Operations: platemaking through pressing Packaging Operations: handling, insertion, storage, package design & flow Distribution Operations: transport mode, timing, locations, and handling

BASICNEWSPAPERSUPPLYCHAIN
Advertising & News

Press Operations Packaging Operations Distribution Operations

Newsprint & Ink

wwwnada.com Physical distribution of newspapers The newspaper distribution system consists of several hierarchical levels. According to Mantel there are three different hierarchical levels: the central shipping node, the transfer node and the delivery node [Mantel et al, 1993]. Figure 4 shows a rough model of the different levels in Swedish distribution, which contains ve hierarchical levels: the loading dock, the transportation (carried out by the truck drivers), the distribution center, the carriers and the readers. Not all levels are constantly involved in the distribution, since the combination of the ve levels depends on the geographical structure of the distribution area.

Figure 4: A rough model of the different hierarchical levels in the Swedish distribution system [Modied from Rehn et al, 1999]. As seen in gure 4, the distribution always starts from the loading dock, which is where the bundles are transported to on conveyer belts from the mailroom. Thereafter, the distribution either starts with a transport, which is carried out by a truck driver, or a carrier, which has a specic carrier route with a specic number of readers. After the transport process, the copies can be distributed to a distribution center, directly to a carrier or to another truck driver for further transportation. The distribution center can either be a loading dock or a place where the bundles are re-loaded to another transportation route, e.g. a node where the bundles are re-loaded to another transportation or a carrier. This model is an improvement on the model presented in Rehn et al, 1999, gure 2. This improved model is more general since the distribution center is a node for re-loading the bundles, which was not the case in Rehn et al, 1999

Information ow within the newspaper distribution

The information ow within the newspaper distribution logistics moves in both directions. A forward ow of information comes from carriers, employees of the distribution center, truck drivers, staff at the printing facility, circulation department or newspaper management. A backward ow of information comes from all the employees with the exception of the newspaper management. In order to be able to deal with day-to-day changes in the newspaper distribution, correct information must be forwarded to the correct people at the correct time. Within most organizations the ow of information moves between all departments and employees [Kotler, 1997]. Figure 5: The information ow moves in both directions through the wole pro cess chain [Modied from Kotler, 1997]. 4.3 A model of the morning newspaper distribution In gure 6, an entity-relationship model of the distribution process is displayed

[Fllstrm, 1998]. The model in gure 6 is a further developed model based on the existing ifratrack model. The gray objects and resource classes, and those links with bolder lines are added to the existing ifratrack model. The resource classes are van and carrier while the rest are object classes. All classes are linked to one or several other classes. Depending on the structure of the object and resource classes, the links between them can be one-to-one, one-to-one or many, one or many-to-one or many-to-many. All object classes have attributes and activities and the resources classes only have attributes. These attributes have to be dened for each object and resource class.

Figure 6: The ifratrack object and resource classes in the newspaper distribution. This is a suggested extension to the existing ifratrack model [Rehn et al, 2000]. The modeling of the newspaper distribution process was carried out in order to understand the process. By modeling the whole newspaper distribution process, new models can be developed without loosing important sub-processes. Address Mailbox Distribution Process of Newspaper Industry * The newspaper sales involve distributing highly perishable products under severe time constraints. * The printed newspapers have to be dispatched to various distributors across the region. Transportation is normally through private contract carriers within local area, public transport in case of longer distances and through couriers in other cases. * The newspaper distributor has the rights to distribute the newspaper in his area. The revenue of the newspaper distributor is based on a commission on the sale of every newspaper. The circulation is normally through salesmen appointed and

salaried by the distributors, who in turn pass it on to hawkers. * Hawkers, vendors and book stall owners are the last link of the supply chain before newspaper reaches readers. The hawkers' remuneration is also normally based on the commission system and is generally the highest in the entire supply chain. * Responsiveness and efficiency play an important role in newspaper distribution channel. Responsiveness includes supply chain's ability to respond to wide a range of quantity demanded (due to demand fluctuations) and meet short lead times. On the other hand efficiency is the cost of making and delivering the newspaper to the readers.