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...
This summer we were visited by Prof. Dr. Filip Dochy (University of Leuven / Maastricht University), the leading authority on learning & development. His conclusion about achieving High Impact Learning: variation works!! We have continued working on this theme the latter part of the year and we have developed a new concept to enable Supply Chain...
Last month I visited two different clients, in both cases for delivering an S&OP Master Class, and I subsequently attended their Demand Review meetings. Always interesting, a bit of theory that is applied into practice immediately afterwards. Part of the Master Classes was a simple S&OP Maturity Scan, mainly included to make people think. What...
Driven by big and global developments and specifically in supply chain management, continuous learning should be seen as a continuous process. Since each individual and organisation is unique, developing and implementing effective learning programs is challenging. Supply Chain Movement and consultancy Involvation have therefore developed a mind...
Competition is more global and fiercer than ever. Not many companies are able to dominate the market and hence for most companies cost price is a ‘qualifier’. If your product is too expensive, you’re out. Efficiency is a necessity. On the other hand the market requires more and more service. Product ranges are widened, product life cycles are...
In our consultancy practice we find that large numbers of manufacturing companies are struggling with the decision whether to use a Cyclic or Non-Cyclic production system. Cyclic production is often regarded as an inflexible way of production; a pre-defined cycle reduces degrees of freedom in the production schedule. However, cyclic production...
Many companies embrace Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) and consider it the perfect tool to balance out supply and demand. In addition, S&OP can act as a perfect link between the business strategy and operational execution. Sadly all too often, S&OP does not meet expectations. Many companies struggle to implement an effective and efficient...
It is the main theme of 2014. Again. Books, magazines, blogs, opinion and expert articles, advertisements galore! But how often do you happen to bump into something really new? When was the last time that you were surprised by a truly original view? It seems so logical. A process in which the plans of the different business functions are...