Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment: a case study in copper clad laminate industry

Abstract

Intense competition, rapidly declining prices, unpredictable customer demand, and constrained material supplies are facts of life in the global copper clad laminate (CCL) market. Collaboration across the supply chain has become a crucial element in the creation of business value in such a complex manufacturing environment. The collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) process is a powerful tool to enhance the cooperation between partners from upstream to the vendor/suppliers and downstream to the customer. In this paper, we applied the CPFR process in Hong Kong CCL industry for validation in manufacturing field. In the past CPFR pilot cases, most of these were concentrated on the grocery industry. As there are significant differences between the grocery and copper clad laminate businesses, the modified model for implementing the CPFR with the consideration of the engineering change control in order to enhance the responsiveness to the market change is proposed to account for the differences.

Keywords:

• CPFR
• Key performance indicators
• Bill of materials (BOM)
• Supply chain management (SCM)
• Inventory management

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the support offered by Central Grant of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under Project Number: G-YA19.

Walter W.C. Chung is Associate Professor of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He graduated in Industrial Engineering and received his MBA from UNSW Australia. His research interests are in enterprise transformation for management succession. A recipient of the President's Award for Achievement 1996/97: research & Scholarly Activities, he has successfully supervised research students at PhD level and has published numerous research papers. He has been successful in research grants (HK$7.1 million) and is active in consulting with business and industry. Programme Leader of a self-financed Masters Degree in Industrial Logistics Systems, he is Project Director of a teaching company scheme for a couple of companies.

Samuel W.F. Leung is Vice Factory Director of Yantat Printed Circuit Shen Zhen Co. Ltd. He is responsible for the overall operation (over 900 people) and for steering the company's direction to enhance its competence. He graduated in Chemistry from Hong Kong Baptist University and received his Master of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is pursuing his Doctorate Degree of Engineering in Industrial and System Engineering from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has dedicated himself to the printed circuit board and copper clad laminate industries for over 20 years. He has profound working experience in the industry. He has actively participated in introducing advanced manufacturing technology to the industry.