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Wal-Mart Background

Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated in 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in1972. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States; it is also a highly successful supply chain enterprise. (Walmart, 2010)

In 1970, Wal-Mart set its first supply distribution center in Arkansas. Then the second distribution center opened in 1975. By 1979, the firm had switched an inventory system that tracked items at the individual level, this system helped the company grew its net sales from $975,000 to $1 billion. In 1984, the “Sam’s Club” warehouse stores were opened. Then, in 1987, Wal-Mart set a satellite network to send sales data to headquarters immediately. In 1988, Sam Walton handed over his position to David Glass, and the first Wal-Mart supercenter also opened in this year. (Blanchard, Comm, and Mathaisel, 2008)

Sam Walton died in 1992, in this year the firm began its international supply chain expansion efforts. When Lee Scott was a CEO in 2000, the company concentrated on using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to help the company to increase the visibility of supply chain and reduce the inefficiencies and costs. (Blanchard, Comm, and Mathaisel, 2008)

Wal-Mart’s strategy is selling high volumes of discounted products. Besides, one of the important factors that make Wal-Mart to be a successful company is their efficient and effective supply chain management. The benefits of an efficient and effective SCM system include decrease of the lead time, fast inventory turnover, accurate predict inventory levels, increase warehouse space, reduce safety stock and better working capital utilization( Mohan, 2003).

Wal-Mart is one of the companies using the SCM system successfully. This system helps the firm to run its logistics and distribution very efficiently. By this SCM system, Wal-Mart has become the largest grocery retailer in the United States.

Wal-Mart Supply Chain Management

Wal-Mart...