So you have been working with your team and possibly a few external vendors in order to get some improvements done in your supply chain planning. Perhaps, this has to do with buying software, or maybe it has to do with process improvements within your supply chain planning process. You of course want to get
The other day I was searching around the internet and I came a across an interesting article on supplychaindigital.com entitled, “Four Steps for an Ethical Supply Chain.” It caught my attention. In a world so driven by competition and climbing to the top, often we leave our values and our ethics in the dust. In
I was recently exposed to the idea of thinking like a hedgehog (one big idea) versus the fox (a lot of different ideas). So what happens when people who are more like hedgehogs in their line of work, interact with people who think like a fox? I just happen to know two such groups: Business leaders
Steve Reichert retired from AkzoNobel after a successful career in supply chain with the company. We at Arkieva have worked with Steve since his Witco days in the late 90s and at AkzoNobel since the early 2000’s. This blog post is to celebrate Steve’s career and to wish him the very best as he starts
Producing and/or subcontracting in faraway regions can often lower the cost per unit in terms of labor and capital equipment investment. This supply chain strategy greatly increases lead times, the need for long range planning and increased inventory to cover demand uncertainty. A thorough evaluation should be made of the trade-offs of agile vs purely low cost supply chain strategies. The low cost solution might not be the best solution.
Recently, I experienced an earthquake during my trip to Taiwan. I am not sure but I think this was the first one for me. As it happened, you could feel a little back and forth movement. It lasted for a few seconds and then it was gone. While it caused some excitement (and concern) from
“Complexity exists, whether you ignore or not – better not to ignore it” Peter Lyon IBM retired, former director IBM Strategic Systems In 1995 the IBM Microelectronics Division made a decision to invest in a “smart” central or supply chain planning engine (CPE) to intelligently match assets with demand to improve its performance and responsiveness.
It is time to bring out the crystal ball and see what the future has in store for us! Admittedly, no one really know the future but there is no harm in imagining. And it is fun as well. Read this blog and share your thoughts as well.
In one of my previous posts, I wrote about using coefficient of variation (CV) as a predictor of forecastability. In this post, I will talk about how it can be used to indicate a sensitivity of lead time towards the safety stock calculations. To quickly remind the reader first: The formula for CV = StdDev
Planning is an art. All planners deal with the daily firefighting while also looking into the future and cautiously calculating possible steps to combat all sorts of scenarios. But how do you plan for scenarios when you are new to a company? Every business is different and while there’s always demand and supply, the devil