Posts by Terry

Gartner votes Apple as the top supply chain for 2013. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook both oversaw Apples Supply Chain. “When Cook took over the supply chain, he cut the number of component suppliers from 100 to 24, in a move to force the companies to compete for Apple’s business. Cook then shut down 10 of the 19 company warehouses to limit overstocking, and by September 1998 inventory was down from a month to only six days” Your...

If you want to stand out, don’t be different. Be outstanding. – Meredith West In my last article I wrote about tough lessons learned while attaining World Class S&OP (Sales and Operations) certification. The most comments I received pertained to “It’s the people and their decisions that will make a project hell” It’s beneficial if you go back and read the article before going on. How DO we take a politically saturated, finger...

I spoke at two major Logistics and Supply Chain Conferences about a major business transformation project I was involved in. It’s time to take a hard look at the successes, challenges and failures. The object of the project was to reach a World Class level for Sales and Operations in the company through the Oliver Wight method. According to Wikipedia S&OP planning was developed by Oliver Wight in the 1980’s. So they know their...

The best way to improve a supply chain is by attacking it from the top to bottom.  That means from the C-suite down. What many companies do is allow users to make suggestions from the bottom without a proper ROI performed (with clear time and cost savings) and whether their suggestions are in line with the company’s medium to long term strategies. You end up with dozens if not hundreds of request for changes usually addressing a...

Calculating Return on Investment or ROI prior or after your SAP projects can be a formidable task. Formidable because it’s not always clear on HOW SAP will drive down costs, increase sales, increase customer satisfaction or make a Supply Chain more efficient. Below is a check list to help estimate ROI on SAP projects. Will the implementation reduce head count or FTE (Full time employe)? When we implemented a SAP driven weighing system...