In this blog, we point the reader to a recent article “Humachine”, which identifies the general challenge of implementing decision technology to improve SCM decision making resulting in improved organizational performance and the importance of experience in the trenches.
Having a vision of the future is important to help coordinate SCM initiatives towards the “global good” – but having a vision is worthless without effective work in the trenches. In fact, a far better vision is “sense and respond” SAR which moves an organization from a big bang paradigm periodic driven approach that currently dominates SCM even in best in class organizations to an “as needed” basis.
Before the current set of analytics and SCM experts, it was the OR/MS profession that drove the development and successful application of analytic and data methods to improve supply chain performance. INFORMS continues to lead in the ongoing challenge of more intelligent and responsive supply chains. In this blog, we will point out some keynote addresses from the current meeting of relevance to successful SCM technology investments.
“Chaos, complexity, and uncertainty” often victimize an organization’s supply chain outstripping the ability of spreadsheet-based tools to respond intelligently. Sounds like 2020? In fact, this comes from one of the original Jedi Knights Dr. Harlan Crowder in a 1997 paper titled “Helpful Hints for OR/MS Consultants”. The purpose of this blog is to revisit this paper since the hints for success are as relevant now as they were then.
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.
Over the past few years, the chatter about the role of AI to “optimize” supply chain has been almost endless. Some of the material is great, other is hype, some conjecture, and in most cases, we will not know the impact...