Posts Tagged "optimize supply chain"


In one of my latest articles – “SAP Supply Chain Monitoring Best Practises” I spoke about a Supply Chain Executive’s winning formula. Included in that winning formula is #2 Maintain strategic focus Define Key Initiatives & Metrics. I would highly recommend re-reading that article as this one builds on it. What astonishes me is how many companies do not use standard SAP reporting to measure key metrics. SAP provides up to 300...

Read More

Causality-there is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace, is to understand it. To understand the “why.” “Why” is what separates us from them…”Why” is the only real source of power, without it you are powerless. MEROVINGIAN, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) How did Isadore Sharp Make the Four Seasons Hotel into Fortune magazine’s list “Top Companies to Work...

Read More

A Supply Chain Executive’s  winning formula is: Support the CEO’s vision and provide a Supply Chain vision Maintain a strategic focus including: Help create and support a Focused Business Plan Define Key Initiatives & metrics All of the above easily remembered and communicated Create  an A+ team Make sure accountability is in place Simplify and keep on simplifying Let’s first look at accountability and simplifying. In...

Read More

“Move a thousand people forward a foot at a time, rather than moving one person forward by a thousand feet” In 2007, when JetBlue left hundreds of passengers stranded on nine planes for over ten hours during an ice storm, they knew they had to make colossal business changes. They made those changes by taking a day to map out their bad weather operations on Post-It notes, identifying one thousand pain points. That’s right… One...

Read More

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...

Read More