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.

By |2021-07-22T10:03:55-04:00July 22nd, 2021|Central Planning, Community Intelligence, Demand Management, Rapid Intelligent Response|
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Effect of Lockdowns on Essential Goods Value Chain

These interesting times that we are currently living through have thrown open a lot of challenges. Organizations and decision-makers must be agile and innovative to overcome the challenges that COVID-19 has thrown at us. In India, we had 2 lockdown periods in the last 15 months. Being a supply chain student, I try to watch and analyze day-to-day situations with a lot of interest and I see one area that needs improvement when lockdowns are implemented.

By |2021-07-06T13:39:43-04:00July 6th, 2021|Community Intelligence, COVID-19, Logistics and Transportation, Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management|
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CPE Planning Level, IBP, Elixirs, and the Ongoing Challenge

In SCM there is an ongoing flow of elixirs (magic potion) from ‘false prophets’ claiming that they are an easy path to improved performance. A recent elixir is IBP followed by “doing central planning at the family level” to neutralize the uncertainty associated with estimating demand at the product level. This blog will illustrate the challenge in this effort since factories produce products, not families.

By |2023-10-06T09:03:43-04:00June 22nd, 2021|Central Planning, Community Intelligence, IBP, Supply Planning|
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Target Inventory and Central Planning Engines (Models) – Avoiding the Runaway Train

Often inventory is considered the simplest component of supply chain management that can successfully be managed separately. The purpose of this blog is to provide some observations to avoid the runaway train. We will first review the basics of CPE and then address the use of target inventory (specifically ending finished goods inventory EFGI) in CPEs.

By |2023-10-06T09:07:40-04:00May 26th, 2021|Central Planning, Community Intelligence, Inventory Management, Supply Chain|
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Demand Versus Predict Variability – Avoiding a Paint by Numbers Disaster

In this blog, we will focus on protecting your investment. The example involves demand variability versus prediction variability and its impact on inventory policy and operational efficiencies. It is loosely based on a real situation from the trenches.

By |2020-09-29T16:05:06-04:00September 30th, 2020|Central Planning, Community Intelligence, Demand Management, Inventory Management, inventory optimization|
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Lessons for COVID-19 and Supply Chain Management – Six Months Later

Over the past six months, significant progress has been made in understanding COVID-19 and reducing its health and economic impact. In this blog, we will not rehash this information, but to identify open issues in handling the current challenge of tackling COVID-19 and relate this to the challenge of managing supply chains.

By |2024-02-21T13:56:43-05:00September 22nd, 2020|Community Intelligence, COVID-19, Operations Management, Supply Chain Management|
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