About Dr. Ken Fordyce

Before joining Arkieva, he had a very successful 36-year career with IBM, much of it in all aspects of supply chain (to use Intel’s Karl Kempf’s preferred term – demand supply networks) for IBM Microelectronics Division (MD). During this period, MD was a Fortune 100-size firm by itself. Fordyce was part of the teams that altered the landscape of best-practices – receiving three IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, AAAI Innovative Application Award, and INFORMS Edelman Finalist (twice) and Wagner (winner). He writes and often speaks about the “ongoing challenge,” both to practitioners and academics. In his free time, Dr. Fordyce enjoys writing programs in APL2 while running sprints.

Tools of the Trade: National Puzzle Day, Probability and the Board Game Risk

National Puzzle Day is January 29th. It is a day Arkieva celebrates because the ongoing challenge of smarter supply chain decisions involves supersized puzzles and games. This year we will focus on probabilistic forecasting using the board game Risk.  This blog will show how Monte Carlo Simulation can be used to estimate the average number of “wins”, but critically the range of possible “wins” across some interval.

By |2022-09-20T08:22:58-04:00January 25th, 2022|Supply Chain Optimization|

Tools of the Trade: Characteristics of Agents of Change Teams to Drive Successful Investment

In previous “tools of the trade” blogs, the focus has been on conveying a basic understanding of core technologies critical to improving supply chain management decision making. Other blogs have focused on investing in technology.  As with any investment there are risks to success. This blog focuses on the need for a small group driving technology that upsets the social order called agents of change (AOC). 

How “Forecastable” is Your Data? It’s Complex Anyway You Look at It

These “key tools” balance a need for simple with a need to handle the complexity of SCM – following the IBM adage – complexity exists whether you ignore it or not, best not to ignore it.

RCCP Versus MPS: How Are They Connected? Elixirs and the Wrong Question

A reasonable question supply chain folks often ask themselves is ‘What is the relationship between Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) and Master Production Scheduling (MPS)?’ However, this is the wrong question to ask oneself. This blog will address the transition from AS to central planning as best practices and demonstrate that with a firm’s due diligence they can make the transition successfully. This is critical for what-ifs and effective use of optimization.

By |2021-09-08T11:03:35-04:00September 8th, 2021|Central Planning, RCCP, Supply Planning|

Classical Supply Chain Management Confronts its Quantum Revolution – the Path to Rapid Intelligent Response (RIR)

COVID-19 direct and ancillary events have made clear that uncertainty is an inherent part of the demand-supply network structure. Every firm, on a regular basis, faces “risk situations" such as manufacturing excursion, unexpected new demand or loss of demand, component supplier interruption, etc. This has placed risk management and rapid intelligent response (RIR) front and center in SCM discussions.

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