It will be difficult to find a manager in any professional organisation in the western world who would dare to claim that employees should not be empowered. Effective managers can get great results from their teams if they ensure that the targeted output is crystal clear, without dictating how exactly this output should be achieved. Most employees...
Some companies have a well-developed sales & operations planning (S&OP) process as a safeguard for structured decision-making. Those companies take an integral view of supply and demand, including the financial impact of mediumterm risks. The managers of such companies make results-based decisions and are truly at the helm. Supply Chain Media and...
In our recent article Towards an effective S&OP with Stephen Covey, the power of Covey’s bestselling theory was applied to Sales & Operations Planning. We used Habit 3, “Put First Things First”, to make a high level design of an effective S&OP process. In this follow-up article, we will demonstrate that it is equally important to apply Covey’s...
Since the publication of Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” in 1989, more than 15 million copies have passed the counter, making it one of the best selling management books ever. The seven habits that Covey describes are brilliant in their simplicity. No more than common sense, you could argue, but why the massive interest and...
Not too long ago I spoke with a couple of planners at a manufacturing company. With a certain despair they confided that the planning they created had to be changed continuously. It was certainly no exception that the planning was changed at least 50 times between creation and execution. Even next day’s planning was subject to frequent changes.
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...
A couple of months ago I was very fortunate to be present at a presentation by the world famous management guru Gary Hamel. A very gifted presenter and storyteller with a very inspiring presentation. Messages that made me think even deeper about themes I have been working and thinking on the last couple of years. How can I help organizations to...
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,...
I’ve recently read “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion. A hilarious novel that currently can be found in large piles in every bookstore. The leading character is a genetics professor, named Don Tillman, who researches Asperger’s syndrome and shows, without being aware of this fact, quite many symptoms of this syndrome himself. Without...