Supply Chain Management in Sports Obermeyer Case Study

Supply Chain Management in Sports Obermeyer - Case Study Example Given the ten styles of Women's Parkas, I recommend that Wally focuses on the three women's styles which are within one standard deviation from the mean of the normal distribution based on the individual sales forecasts of the Sample Buying Committee as shown in Exhibit 10. These styles are the Electra, the Daphne, and the Assault. About 68% of the population of the normal distribution are within one standard deviation from the mean. Wally can ask China to produce 10,000 units of any of these three styles only. Another option would be for him to choose to produce only one style for the China operations which requires a minimum order of l0,000 units. He can ask the marketing staff to do check the actual demand and to revise the sales forecasts of the three chosen styles. The style with the highest sales forecast will be prioritized for production in China. The two other women's styles can be produced in HK if they have lower sales forecasts. Given that the other styles are within 2 standard deviations from the mean of the normal distribution of the average sales forecasts, I will not recommend Wally to order 10,000 units of these women's styles: Call, Isis, Entice, Teri, Seduced, Stephanie and Anita. The choice of the three styles is a logical one because the individual forecasts already assume the level of the previous year's sales of the women's parkas. In order for forecasts to be reliable, they have to be based on the sales of previous years. If Wally chooses any of the seven other women's styles, then that would not be efficient since those styles already constitute within two standard deviations of the mean. There is a higher probability that he will be choosing the styles which would be harder to dispose of in the retail stores.