Posts Tagged "Process improvement"

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...

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...

Think about these points before embarking on a Supply Chain transformation project. Have the executives fully on board and have them communicate (it is a business project not an IT only project) Is there product portfolio alignment between Finance, Marketing, Sales and the Supply Chain? It all starts with Forecast accuracy and understanding forecast bias Do a comprehensive ROI (Return On Investment) analysis on Projects Use standard...

Here are a few sobering statistics on how IT automation has eliminated non value adding tasks – from Quartz magazine. Between 2000 and 2010, the jobs of 1.1 million secretaries were eliminated In the same period, the number of telephone operators dropped by 64%, travel agents by 46% and bookkeepers by 26%. “Two-thirds of the 7.6 million middle-class jobs that vanished in Europe were the victims of technology”. Let’s talk about...

You’ve seen it too often; dreadfully boring PowerPoint presentations killing audience participation.  Or one assertive executive forcing his or her view on how business processes and SAP should work. How about company projects to improve the Supply Chain based on which VP yells the loudest? All these methods are incredibly outdated and as technology and processes become more and more sophisticated you need to capitalize on your best...