Abstract:
This research “Impact of supply chain management on business growth: The case of Inyange Industries Ltd” was conducted aiming at analyzing why Inyange Industries Ltd which is mainly producing milk products is producing at about 40% of its designed production capacity, yet farmers are crying that, their raw milk perishes for lack of market and Inyange milk products are either scarce or expensive on the national market comparatively to the imported milk.
The problem was to analyze whether Inyange Industries Ltd can increase its production, meet both the suppliers’ and distributors’ needs and at the same time keep its business growing. The study had to analyze the impact of supply chain on business growth as Inyange Industries Ltd as case study.
The research established that; Inyange Industries has 16 suppliers of raw milk and they are mainly located in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. Compared to the demand, suppliers’ capacity is generally underutilized, especially during the rainy season and they don’t have any other alternative customer.
The company has an installed capacity of producing 26.4 million liters of milk per year and, currently, the plant operates 40% of its capacity. The production keeps growing as demand increases. The company relies on both suppliers to produce quality raw milk and distributors to increase market share penetration in order to increase its production. Currently, the company produces only fresh milk, pasteurized and homogenized milk, UHT and yoghourt. No matter the demand, Inyange’s production is backed with yet unutilized capacity. The company has the potential to buy all cow milk produced in Rwanda if the market is available.
The company has six distributors who cover the whole country. The City of Kigali has two distributors. Every Province is covered only by one distributor. All the distributors said that; Inyange products have the potential to dominate the market because of the increasing demand which depends on their good quality. However, the capacity of penetration is limited because of lack of technical support from Inyange Industries, registered irregularities in supply of finished products leading to poor management of the entire supply chain.
The research established that, supply chain management has a significant role on business growth, especially for Inyange Industries Ltd which was the case study.
