Recently, one of my customers stated that ‘the total supply chain inventory says as much about the health of a company as weight says about the health of a person’. If you look at it like that, then my colleagues and I have once again had the privilege of helping a considerable number of ‘seriously overweight patients’ to slim down healthily...
‘Pee contract’ (plascontract in Dutch) just missed out on being crowned Dutch ‘Word of the Year’ in 2016. Pee contract. Maybe you heard about it? The Dutch called it a disgrace. There was a written agreement between the Grootenhoek care home and one of its female residents stating that she was officially allowed to go to the toilet at 11 a.m., 2...
Effective production management contributes to achieving the company goals. However, manufacturing companies regularly face challenges such as disappointing customer experiences and excessive costs. All too often it becomes apparent that long lead times are still too short, high inventories are still too low and substantial capacities are still...
When I recently returned from a customer appointment with a frowning face, a colleague asked what was the problem. To my own surprise, I was not able to explain to him why the particular case was so complex. After all, he concluded, the demand was stable, the product portfolio was limited and products had no short shelf lives. My colleague was...
Inventory is waste: a statement I still hear far too often. Even recently in a debate with supply chain professionals about the impact of e-commerce. Perfectly in line with the populist Lean view, but dangerous in the wrong hands. I cannot say it often enough: inventory is not waste. Inventory is our treasure, provided that it is available in...
Over the last decades we have witnessed the arrival of a large variety of new process improvement methodologies and philosophies. For many years our options were limited to MRP, LEAN and TOC, but these have been augmented by TPM, TQM, WCM and Six Sigma and now we can even choose QRM and DDMRP. Even better, we also have RFS, sDBR, CCPM, ESP,...
Recently I was invited by a production company in the south of The Netherlands. The reason was chronic lack of grip on the production process. This was far from a new problem. However, increasing pressure on cost and reliability, forced the plant manager to take action soon. All efforts to date, including attempts to introduce Lean and Six...
It’s two minutes to twelve, and we continue navel gazing!” said one of the participants during the S&OP mini-seminar recently held at ArlaFoods in Nijkerk. Just before Lourens Schouwink, CFO Samsung Benelux, had talked about their ambitions and approach. Leaving part of his audience behind in wonder and despair. Samsung continues on the...
Recently I was fascinated by the splendid documentary about Hema, a highly successful Dutch retailer, in which CEO Ronald van Zetten was closely followed during a full year. It shows a great example of leadership, this time with supply chain management at the centre of attention. Fast fashion to be exact. The documentary starts with an...
At the time Mr Taiichi Ohno, architect of the Toyota Production System, stated we should no longer make large amounts of stock and then try to sell it (push), but need to be aware of the market (pull), this meant a turnaround in our thinking. Nowadays, “push” and “pull” are two of the most used terms in SCM. So far, so good. Nevertheless, what...