Supply Chain Practices In Print Media

SUPPLY CHAIN PRACTICES IN PRINT MEDIA

Print media and newspapers have been the oldest form of information dissemination. Interestingly, newspapers reach the most remote locations throughout the country with being manufactured just a day before. The circulation of various newspapers is increasing day-by-day but the revenue generated by advertising is moving to other media sources. Most of the publishing companies were traditionally characterized by vertically integrated companies which didn’t want to share information. The growing trends of e-books, online newspaper etc. is decreasing the revenue for the print media. Also, the advertisements revenue is decreasing as companies are putting up ads in other media which is putting a pressure on the

The publishers should have more data about the accurate sales data and other channel related data. Dynamic cost & process flow model is required in such cases to keep in pace with the changing supply chain model. The detailed information about the product and high-level product movement tracking can be used to provide high level of control and long range planning.

Various practices across the publisher supply chain include

• Large orders or broad purchasing orders for inks and newsprint

• These inbound supply chain are usually left flexible in nature. This is done to take advantage of the base product pricing

The supply chain model in any industry is built in such as way so as to balance time and cost and are forced to be fix. Whereas, the publishing supply chain model should be built in such as way so as to add cost to compensate for the small amount of time available to balance the level of

While pre-press formatting enables the news to be ready for the press plate and no work has to be done for latter stages, the use of technology makes sure that faster processing happens. In terms of the critical time taken in the press operation, fixed run time takes the most amount of time. The output is limited by the number of machines and number of press processes which is difficult and costly to alter considering the high capital requirements. Thus the only way addition to the process is done can be by minimizing the starts and stops, minimizing edition changes etc.

The packaging process and production process should work in close contacts with each other because any delay caused in the downstream process like packaging can lead to slowing of production process.

After the various processes inside the industry and removing bottlenecks, sales management becomes increasingly important. The most important part of sales management is the sales planning. Since the most important part is circulation, creating maximum foothold is very important. This is achieved mainly through using transportation of private contract carriers within local areas, public transport for longer distances and via couriers in any other case. Most of the planning is done in three stages:

• Prospect generation &