財務(wù)管理外文文獻

1、Project Scheduling in the Financial Management of SupplyChains(excerpts)Author:Durukan Kalyoncu, GuldaneAcceptance Date: June 2012In literature, numerous publications on managing supply chains exist most of which has focused on the physical aspects of the supply chains. Although the bottom line is v

2、ery importantfor managers, there are a limited number of publications that combine the financial management of supply chains with the physical management. Those studies address the supply chain financial performance measurement with different approaches and measures; one of which has been Cash Conve

3、rsion Cycle (CCC). Cash Conversion Cycle is a metric that measures the time elapsed fromthe payment to the suppliers till the receipt of money from the customers. Thus it is a two dimensional concept that incorporates time and financial considerations simultaneously. In that respect it enables compa

4、nies to integrate the operational scheduling with the financial scheduling.When the components of the CCC are examined separately; the Average Payable and AverageReceivable Terms are related to the company financial policy and contract terms between supplychain partners. On the other hand, Inventory

5、 Conversion Period depends on the firms invenpolicy. Fig ure 1 assumes that the inventory is in retailers warehouse on the same day with orderplacement to the manufacturer. Also it assumes that there is no outbound transportation time so onthe day that inventory leaves the retailers warehousebytheit

6、iscustomreceiv erdand AccountsReceivable is issued. According to those assumptions Inventory Conversion Period depends on theoptimal ordering quantity.In the sense that, CCC is embracing AccountPayable, AccountReceivable and InventoryConversion Period; first two are related to timing of cash inflows

7、 and outflows and the third isrelated to firms operations policy, it is a bridging measurement between operational and financialplanning.Also, since CCC is the time passed from cash outflow to cash inflow, it measures how long thefirm needs outside financing. Thus many scholars (Farris and Hutchison

8、 (2002), Soenen (1993),Binti Mohamad and Binti Mohd Saad (2010) stated that the shorter CCC the better the companyfinances are. However, there are some complications regarding the Cash Conversion Cycle metricapproach in financial management of supply chains. Even though supply chain partners putcons

9、iderable efforts to have control over the stream of cash inflow by managing payment terms,these cash inflows are mostly probabilistic due to unpredictable conditions of the downstreamplayers. On the other hand cash outflows to the upper layers of the chain is deterministic; howeverthis depends on th

10、e cash available at the time. Figure 2 depicts the“downstream ”and “upstream”supplychain partners.Upstream Partners Downstream Partners Vendor Manufacturer Distributor Retailer Customer.Supply Chain Levels As seen from the Gupta and Duttas study (2011), the early payment of thedebts result in the lo

11、west cash outflow at the current period, yet it does not necessarily result in thelowest present value of the cash outflow. Thus managing cash flows in an efficient way is not aneasy task taking into account the probabilistic inflows in addition to the tradeoffs between prompt payment of the debt, w

12、hich reduces the amount to be paid, and late payment, which increases theinterest earned on cash deposits. Those financial considerations become even more complicated for supply chains with long Lead Times. So Lead Time reduction has a huge strategic importance for successful operation of those chai

13、ns. Nevertheless, managing Lead Time, which is mostly deterministic, is not an easy task either because it affects the cash flow stream in direct or indirect ways. Indirectly, Lead Time reduction affects the cash flows by improving customer service and responsiveness to demand shifts. First of all,

14、Lead Time compression is a costly process including labor cost and additional transportation cost. Second, inventory holding cost can be reduced due to lower requirement for safety stock.Third, reducing Lead Time reduces the Cash Conversion Cycle.As the Cash Conversion Cycle measures how long the co

15、mpanys cash is tied to accounts payablesand inventories till fulfilling an order; shortening the Lead Time decreases cost of borrowing, andalso it enables the company todeliver the productsorservices sooner; thus the receivablecollectionperiod starts earlier.Althoughmany scholars workedon Lead Timec

16、ompression in supplychains such as Beesley(1996) and Towill (1996) they both ignore the investment costs needed toachieve a reduction in Lead Time. Also neither Beesley nor Towill touch the cost of borrowingissue, but rather they emphasize the indirect financialeffects of timereduction, such as fast

17、response to market and enablinga more accurate demand forecast. What is more, most of thesupply chain financial modeling articles are not taking into account the time flexibility factor. As known, companies can reduce Lead Times in exchange for a cost. So while studying the financial aspects of the

18、supply chain this flexibility should be taken into account. Whereas Ben-Daya andRaouf (1994)sstudy focuses on the Lead Timeflexibilityissue by studying the costs of LeadTime reduction along with the effects on the inventory policy such as reorder point and optimalorder quantitywhichaffects ordering

19、and inventory holding costs, their study doesnmodelt awhole supply chain where the transactions with upstream players are taken into account.To sum up,in literaturethereis lackof a comprehensiveapproach for thefinancialmanagement ofthe supply chains. Alsotodayincreasinglydynamiccompaniescannot beman

20、aged with static models. Thus, predictiveintegrated models that take in to account instablefinancial markets and also capable of ensuringrequiredliquiditywhile providingtimely andefficient response to orders is crucial. So, with the purpose of building a comprehensive approachthat embraces time and

21、money considerationssimultaneously, ourstudy uses Cash ConversionCycle as the decision variablewith respect to which we assess the Financial Performance. Byusing project-scheduling methods in timing of the operations and payments, our study aims to findthe optimal Cash Conversion Cycle that generate

22、s the highest accumulated cash at the end of theone-year period.However, in our model cash inflow is probabilistic thus we dont have control over its effecton the optimal CCC. As a result some of the values that are changed in order to find the optimalCCC are order quantity, reorder point and the Le

23、ad Time and Payable term. So our study starts with analyzing the issues affecting financial management of supply chains and then covers the related previous work that the model is built upon. In the next issues affecting the financial management in SC are discussed. In section III review of the lite

24、rature is presented and in Section IV the mathematical model is presented with the objective of maximizing the accumulated net cash at the end of a one-year period. The model considers timing of the cash inflow and outflows and Lead Time crashing costs simultaneously. Finally illustrative example an

25、d sensitivity analysis are presented followed by the conclusion part summarizing findings of the study.DDD corresponds to the least cost, then as theBullwhip effect: It is one of most significant reasons of supply chain inefficiency. It is the amplification of demand variance as the demand informati

26、on passes from the lower levels (customers) of the supply chain to the upper levels (manufacturers level). It may be severely destructive for the financial management of the supply chain as a whole, particularly the upper levels are the ones most affected. Each partner, knowing that the forecasts th

27、ey retrieve from the lower partners are not one hundred percent accurate, builds safety stock. Thus the orders to theupper levels increase as more and more safety stock is built in the system, which leads the upper tiers to have an impression that the demand is more than its actual level. So longer

28、Lead Times result in higher safety stock levels which in turn leads bigger amplifications in the upper levels asknown as the Bullwhip Effect. Demand forecast: For make to stock inventory systems demand forecast is the most important aspect of production management. As cycle time increases, forecasts

29、 have to be made for farther periods, which in turn increases the forecast errors. And when the accuracy of the forecast decreases, firms are forced to keep more safety inventory and thus incur higher inventory holding cost. On the flip side of the coin, even if a firm decides tokeep low inventory l

30、evels, in such a blurry environment there is high probability that it falls short in responding to customer orders which hurts the profits as much as the inventory holding costs. Thus, by shortening the supply chain cycle time the entire chain benefits from accurate demand forecast.Cost of borrowing

31、/investing: Cost ofborrowingis another key aspect of the financialmanagement of the supplychain. Since moreinterest is charged with the time elapsed over theissue date of the debt, firms should ensure collectionof moneyfrom the customers as early aspossible in order to pay the debts. Apparently, col

32、lection periods primary determinant is the cytime since the customers usuallyare not willing to pay beforethey receive the product unlesssome incentives such as discounts are offered in advance.Inventory holding cost: According to Ben-Daya andRaouf s(1994) economic order quantity(EOQ) model, as Lead

33、 Time increases, optimal order quantity Q* increases; therefore the averageinventory held by the firm over the year, and corresponding holding cost increase. Apart from the physical cost of inventory holding, higher obsolescence cost related to higher levels of inventory should be taken into account

34、 in case of change in technology or new trends in demand. What is more, opportunity cost is another side of the inventory holding in the sense that the capital is tiedto inventory rather than other money-making investments. Lead Time crashing cost: Firms can shorten the time needed to produce and de

35、liver the productsto customers but this can be done at a cost known as reduction or crashing cost. Lead Time vs. crashing cost graph is negative exponential (decreasing function). Crashing process starts with the longest lead (processing) time for the activities whichLead Time is reduced the cost in

36、creases exponentially as illustrated in Figure 3. Consequently, the total Lead Time can be decomposed into components depending on the amount invested in reducing/crashing the Lead Time.Cash to Cash cycle, which is first defined by Gitman (1974) was further examined by Gallinger (1997) as the length

37、 of the period that the firm's operating cycle needs to be supported by costly financing. And he adds; “Youcan think of the operating cycle as the number of days sales areinvested in inventories and receivables'' (Gallinger, 1997). As seen from Gallinger definitions longer Cash Conversio

38、n Cycles damage company finances in terms of cost of borrowing/ financing the necessary funds. Thus, shortening the CCC is a key metric for the company financialmanagement. In that sense, further analysis of the CCC made by Soenen (1993) decomposes it into three sections:1. The length of the credit

39、term that the company gets from its suppliers,2. The length of the production process, and3. The number of days the final products remains in inventory before they are sold.So, in this study we are going to examine the effects of lead-time reduction; in other wordsshortening the total lead time alon

40、g with the optimal timing for Accounts Receivables and Payableson financial management of the supply chain. Besides reducing the CCC, Lead Time compressionbenefits the organizations in other ways too. Beesley (1996) states that, the idea of quick responsein the retail environment and that of just-in

41、- time (JIT) in the manufacturing arena are two importantaspects where time reduction plays a critical role. The value of time in marketing is vital saysBeesley and adds, as businesses become more and more competitive, the time factor becomesmore critical. What is more, according to him, since the e

42、nd consumers demand high variety ofchoice, retailers today should hold minimal stock so that they canmaximizethe product range held under one roofand also offera better service through fasterreplenishment. The author states that although these factors givecompetitiveadvantage to thecompanies, custom

43、ers may notbe willingto pay more for speed and variety. Theaim in “timecompression ”is to cut the amount of time consumed by business processes; therefore the processof converting inputs into outputs (manufacturing time) takes a shorter period of time. Thus the keyto achieve time compression is gett

44、ingrid of wasted time andrearranging the sequence of theactivities accordingly. However Beesley draws attention to a very important fact that the logisticalstrategies are most effective when applied to the supplychain in its broadest context where thescope of supply chain is anything that converts a

45、 resource into a delivered, consumable product orservice. This is called the “holisticapproach ”ora totalsystem view accordingto Beesley. So,according to him inhis paper“Time compression in the Supply Chain”, competitiveness shouldcome from the whole supply chain system, not just from the company (p

46、roducer) itself. Besidesshortening the Lead Time another way to improvethe Cash ConversionCycle is extending theaverage accounts payable term accordingto Farris and Hutchison (2002). Since it isthe timeelapsed betweenissuance of the debtand thecashoutflow, longerpayableterms enablescompanies to obta

47、in interest-free financing. However Farris and Hutchison omit the penalty thatthe manufacturers may charge for a longer payment term, which will increase the cash outflows.What is more, when stating the primaryleverage points to manage CCC, they putemphasis onreducingthe average accounts receivable

48、term howeverin order to encourage the downstreampartners ofsupply chain to make earlypayments, the companyshould offer discount,whichinturn reduces the amount of cash inflows. And finally, reducing the total Lead Time is not free ofcharge to companies. In that sense Nobanee (2009) worked on an impro

49、ved way of modeling theoptimalCCC forsupply chains where he defines the optimalCCC as follows,See Figure1:OptimalCash Conversion Cycle= OptimalInventory Conversion Period + OptimalReceivableCollection Period Optimal PayableDeferralPeriod. As seen fromNobaneeequationscompressing each component to its

50、 shortest time will not necessarily lead to better financial results.The optimal points should be found for eachcomponent ofthe lead-time. Since the CashConversion Cycle measures how long the companys cash is tied to fulfilling an order until thecompany receives cash, shortening the Lead Time affect

51、s the optimal Cash Conversion Cycle and accordingly the financial management of the supply chain in two ways:In our model, working on a three tier supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, retailer and a customer, we are examining the financial effects of any change made in the components of Cash C

52、onversion Cycle on the retailer. Our retailer bases its inventory planning on forecast of demand so places order to the manufacturer in advance by using Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) Model. The retailer issues accounts payable upon placing the order to the manufacturer. The shipment ofthe items occu

53、rs after the manufacturer-processingorder time. So it takes order processing timeplus inbound transportation time for the retailer to receive the items which is initially 20 days in our model.We assume that contract terms for both accounts payable and accounts receivable are notchanged forthe one-ye

54、ar period. Inthe model the pattern ofcollectionfromcustomers isprobabilistic, whereas the pattern of payment to manufacturer depends on the payment receivedfrom customers. This is the case to assure that the cash in hand is sufficient to pay the current debt.The retailer offers a credit term to its

55、customers; a discount of ?!if payment is received within 3days upon delivery or the full amount must be paid after the 3thday. On the other hand for eachday after the 8thday a delay penalty is charged; The firms objective is to maximize the cashavailable at the end of a one-year period after paying

56、the annual inventory holding, ordering and crashing costs by proper selection of the decision variables that composes the Cash Conversion Cycle. In our model total Lead Time is deterministic whereas the Inventory Conversion Period depends on the Lead Times. Lead Time 1 affects Reorder Point by changing the required safety stock level and demand d