A new year is always an opportunity for a fresh start. When making my new year’s resolutions for 2018, I first took stock of what I am happy/unhappy with in my daily life, before deciding what I want to change and how to do so. In our assessments, we basically apply the same logic when supporting our customers in their journey from Sales &...
In 2017, a lot has again been written about S&OP. One of the main topics still is how to ensure true buy-in of non-supply chain stakeholders, which is indeed a key challenge in many cases; not because they are genetically different, but because companies often fail to make clear links between S&OP and functional targets and incentives. In this...
After a number of sessions on leadership and change management in S&OP, it was time for a more technical central theme of the S&OP Professionals meeting on November 20th. Involvation facilitates these interactive sessions twice per year, aiming to exchange experiences in S&OP, learn from each other and create a peer network of S&OP...
This was the central theme of the S&OP Professionals meeting on June 19th. Twice per year Involvation facilitates these interactive sessions of professionals in the field of S&OP. Goal is to exchange experiences in S&OP, learn from each other and create a network of S&OP practitioners. This time we had a broad participation of representatives from...
After years of oscillating between shortfalls and surpluses and the chaos and frustration that this entailed, calm has recently returned for one of my clients and his supplier. How come? They simply turned off their MRP system. The consequences of this decision have been astounding. By reducing the delivery time from several months to just a few...
Machine manufacturers suffering from high costs and long unreliable lead times can make huge gains in terms of competitive edge if they manage to resolve the so-called ‘service paradox’: from relatively slow, unreliable and inefficient to reliable, fast and efficient!Machine builders develop and manufacture often-complex machines, many of which...
In an edition of the Dutch newspaper Het Parool dated 17 February 1967 I came across a full-page advertisement in which the high-end Amsterdam department store De Bijenkorf proudly announced its 26 (!) collections per year – ‘fast fashion’ way ahead of its time. In fact, it took until the start of this century before fast fashion really achieved...
Not long ago, QRM was heralded as the new Lean, and now we are bombarded with DDMRP as the panacea for all our problems. It seems as if the different schools, in their hunger to sell more books, software, and / or advice, put more energy into highlighting the differences than celebrating what unites them. Meanwhile, they leave many an...
How can I get – and above all, keep – the Sales department involved in sales & operations planning (S&OP)? That’s the million dollar question in many S&OP processes. The Supply Chain organisation is the driving force in virtually all S&OP set-ups – which is logical, in a way. After all, the operation won’t get far without planning, and planning...
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...