Supply Chain Management Forum

A new survey on decision-making in retail supply chain: Please participate

2007-07-06T13:51:00.000+02:00

I have been kind of involved in a survey about how companies can make better decisions for buying supply chain IT solutions.

The research is trying to gain some new insights in the area of supply chain and IT management and is initiated in MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program and Chalmers University in Sweden.

I strongly recommend you to participate in this survey: You will receive the final report and there will be a prize too; a copy of the book "Resilient Enterprise" by Dr. Yossi Sheffi of MIT.

It will take around 10 minutes of your time. You can start the survey by clicking here.

Wal-mart's RFID plan remains unchanged for 2007

2007-02-25T20:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I read a recent article in Financial Times on Wal-mart's RFID policy in 2007 and it seems to me that the giant retailer doesn't want to step back from its original objectives. Wal-Mart has said it will maintain the "aggressive" RFID plan in spite of what analysts are calling continued scepticism among suppliers and retailers about the system.

According to a recent article retailer now expects to have five distribution centers and 1,000 of its US stores - about one in four - equipped with RFID readers by April. It wants more than 600 suppliers to be using the tags this year - 300 more than last year.

Consistent plans of Wal-mart, Tesco and Metro Group, in a situation that the general populace has taken a "Wait and See" position, brings this question to the mind that whether we'll see a huge change in RFID adoption level or not…

What do you think?

(Source: Author's article in RFID-Weblog)

SupplyChainer to announce the list of best supply chain partners in 2006

2006-12-08T14:08:00.000+01:00

Year 2006 is ending and what I’m doing is to announce the list of the best supply chain partners in 2006. At SupplyChainer I have already developed some criteria and done some ranking for this but I will be more than happy to receive your inputs as well. So send your votes about what companies are the best as consulting partners, ERP solution vendor, SCE vendors, and demand management solution providers and so on.

I’m looking forward to receiving your information about votes. Keep visiting the SupplyChainer.com till Dec. 20 for the final results. Send your emails to ehsan@creative-weblogging.com

Companies failing to address supply chain dependency threats in Asia, Marsh finds

2006-09-05T23:04:00.000+02:00

According to a recent survey by Marsh non-Asian companies that have supply chain dependencies in Asia often lack awareness of regional risks and have not addressed these in business continuity plans.

According to Continuity Central, the Marsh survey found that 40 percent of respondents were not prepared for a terrorism attack, while only 28 percent were prepared for a natural disaster that could destroy their supply and business operations.

Matthew Elkington, vice-president of Marsh's Risk Consulting Practice, said: "The dramatic rise in supply dependencies with Asia, and in particular China, creates significant and diverse risk exposures, several of which are unique to the region in terms of their nature or severity. For example, according to the European commission, 50 percent of product risk notifications arising in the EU in 2005 originated from China.

"Intellectual property, counterfeiting and ethical risks are often just as important as the more traditional infrastructure, financial and natural disaster considerations and should be given equal weighting on a company's risk agenda," states Mr. Elkington.

The companies that participated in the survey were a combination of multi-national organizations that have supply chains or sites in Asia and independent companies domiciled in the region

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

Is 2-D DataMatrix barcode a serious competitor?

2006-08-19T18:02:00.000+02:00

As the price of RFID tags are still too high for many companies looking for tracking Technologies, a series of other competing Technologies are trying to catch up and one of them is 2-D DataMatrix barcode.

In the past, some problems regarding the use of traditional barcodes made companies migrate to RFID. Among those problems, it can be mentioned that, the dirt, water and humidity rendered many of the codes unreadable. On the other hand, high cost of RFID tags, software and high-end enhanced readers was also a challenge which still exists today.

By the way, some companies such as ImageID Ltd., with their 2-D DataMatrix barcode solution, claim that they have combined best of the two world and offer reliable, low cost tracking technology. I myself am not quite sure that whether this is a serious threat for RFID or not in the long run but it may definitely be in the short term till RFID tags become cheap enough to dominate the market. What do you think?

(The post is originally written by the author in RFID-Weblog)

Need HELP on this questionnaire!!

2006-08-18T12:14:00.000+02:00

Dear members of this forum,
I am conducting a research as part of my dissertation of my master's degree on City University, London. For this purpose I have created a questionnaire on RFID adoption and other related issues.
I would be very grateful if you could answer this, since it is a very important part for the completion of my project.

In order to retrieve the questionnaire please reply with your email, so I can send it to you(or alternatively send me an email to mitsbuc@hotmail.com). It is very quick an easy to answer, and it should take no longer than 10-15 minutes to complete it.

I really appreciate your help. Thank you very much in advance. I am looking forward for your responses.

Best regards,
Thomas.
mitsbuc@hotmail.com
Thomas Dintsis
Business Systems Analysis & Design
Department of Computing
City University
London

Outsourcing: Look beyond costs...

2006-08-01T15:07:00.000+02:00

It's no surprising to see that according to a research done by Gartner, business process improvement is not among the top reasons for outsourcing in the companies.

High pressure from financial markets to increase profitability has resulted in emphasis on short-term financial goals and this has been automatically translated into supply chain actions plans such as outsourcing efforts. But is it really sustainable?

I don't think so. I agree with the point of view of Ousourcing Times that:

Instead of placing emphasis on low cost when choosing an outsourcing partner, companies will gain more by looking at the bigger picture, and scrutinizing if the firm has the necessary resources and the ability to deliver. The firm should be a part of the strategic decisions taken by the parent company, and commitments should be based on long-term returns that benefit the business as a whole, rather than just saving on short-term costs.

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

My advice for 3PLs

2006-07-05T10:02:00.000+02:00

I'm writing this piece for 3PL companies: Put yourself in the position of your clients. What are the main reasons they use your services instead of developing in-house capabilities?

1) State of the art technology
2) High quality customer service
3) Service flexibility
4) Cost effectiveness

Ok, so these are Key Success Factors in your business. Take a look at your action plans and see whether you see all these elements as part of your objectives...

Analyzing Supply Chain Dynamics in Modern Industries

2006-07-04T07:14:00.000+02:00

The phenomenal growth of wireless industry and the automotive industry has greatly increased the intensity of competition. Modern business competition seems to be undergoing a fundamental change. The concept of threads, fabric and weaving develops a framework to explore this industry dynamics and analyze the changing value dynamics. The study helps to comprehend the transformed nature of the dynamics in wireless and automotive industry.

Thread-Fabric Framework and KSN

As the market is becoming very dynamic and so the wireless industry, firms in wireless industry form and dissolve partnerships and the chains at a rapid pace. Hence, there is much collaboration to bring the products and services to market as soon as possible to gain the competitive advantage. This also applies to the automotive industry.

Same type of product can be manufactured by many different manufacturers and there can be many suppliers to supply the parts needed with equal or competitive flexibility and quality. All such link-ups of the value adding activities are value threads, and the totality of the value threads constituting the industry are value fabric. If so, then there is no fixed value chain linking the companies, rather it is flexible, contingent and opportunistic. This makes the unfolding structure of the industry as continuous weaving of value threads into certain patterns of fabric.

The Knowledge Supply Network (KSN) and the platform priorities upon which the value delivered by the KSN is launched, makes this value thread weaving more complex. The degree, at which the KSN partners share the forecasting information beyond being Suppliers and Customers of one another, plays an important role in creating the value thread and the bullwhip effect.

It is evident that the business competition is becoming fierce as players striving against one another to propose value threads to their potential partners, to weave their value threads into a pattern agreeable to the market, there by shaping the value fabric of the industry to their advantage.

The patterns of pragmatic logic, helps to identify the thirdness of the wireless industry. This suggests that, there is a high level of complexity involved in wireless industry and knowing the game at every point of time is important to take the advantage. The change of platforms leads to the shift of push-pull boundaries across the wireless industry. For example, the ongoing migration from 2G to 3G, the WCDMA technology promoted by GSM players Vs the CDMA2000 technology promoted by Qualcomm and its CDMA-1 partners. Market demand being so dynamic as per the geographical interests of customers, the change of platform is necessary which demands flexibility, speed and timing, in-short correct meta orientation and correct strategies-tactics. This will help to capture most of the market with maximum customer demand satisfied on right time, also confirming the required flexibility in value chain. It gives rise to fabric patterns which are manifold.

Modeling and simulation

Modeling and simulation of these two types of value chains; Supplier driven value chain and Distributor driven value chain, allow us to check the shift of push-pull boundary, to evaluate the bullwhip effect and flexibility of the supply chain. It also evaluates, how fast the industry can adapt and exploit the changing circumstances. It helps to visualize the various ways; the market fabric might unfold, spin and weave its value threads accordingly. The player’s conception and maneuvers in modern dynamic industries are analyzed using the simulation model. The phenomenon that, formation and evolution of value threads are disorderly, opportunistic and contingent can be experienced. The bullwhip effects can be analyzed and compared in both type of supply chain. The same concepts can be applied to the automotive industry.

A diet for your supply chain...

2006-06-16T05:42:00.000+02:00

Dan Gilmore, editor of Supply Chain Digest, is one of the people I really admire as a supply chain expert. His fresh ideas and wonderful articles are always inspiring.

In one of his new articles, he has written about a new book titled "The Wall Street Diet: Making Your Business Lean and Healthy". He has strongly recommended the book as a useful guide in SCM area (I trust the guy so I think you should read it).

As title of the book shows, the ideas are couched in terms of a diet and it makes sense. Why? Because like individuals trying to shed excess pounds, companies and their supply chains are plagued by two related challenges: building a total "health" program, not just focusing on one specific element, and "keeping the weight off" after the initial improvement.

Here are some of the most important elements of the "diet" according to Dan Gilmore:

- Create a "Lean" Enterprise - using Lean principles beyond manufacturing to drive out waste and improve efficiency

- Achieve "Advanced" Supply Chain Management (more in a moment).

- Adopt Six Sigma type quality principles across many business processes to achieve a "quality-focused" enterprise

- Improve metrics to track progress

- Expand use of "smart" outsourcing as a function of really looking hard at what functions and processes could be better performed by someone else.

- Take a new, more enlightened focus on customer satisfaction

(Source: SupplyChainer)

My experience on the use of Best of Breed

2006-06-03T23:34:00.000+02:00

This is a question I have been asked many times: "Which approach do you recommend for adoption of Supply chain IT solutions: Single vendor or Best of Breed?".

And my answer to this is: "Good question! the answer is it depends...". But, even though the answer to the above mentioned question would heavily depend on the size of the company, the type of the industry and so forth, I myself vote for Best of Breed approach.

This approach, where companies hand-pick the best software product for each piece of supply chain process, comes with its set of headaches such as: extended vendor evaluation period, complex software integration problems and version control problems.

On the other hand, it may be an investment that provides greater long-term flexibility and higher quality of the solution. The fact that final solution has better fit to the enterprise, makes it a more preferable solution to me. What do you think?

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

Supply chain market analysis: The Google way

2006-05-22T21:38:00.000+02:00

This new service called Google Trends, developed by Google.com is really wonderful. I have to confess that I've become addicted to it. At least 5 times per week, I go to the website and look at the frequency of the keyword searches in different subjects: George Bush, nuclear, Jennifer Lopez and of course supply chain and RFID...

Using the words RFID and Supply Chain, I realized that top 8 highest number of searches for these key words belong to Asian countries (5 cities in India, and then Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand). Dublin and Atlanta are respectively in the 9th and 10th place.

Wow! Does this have any implication? For sure. Does it mean that people in India are natural RFID lovers? No. So what?

It's not because of the population coz China is also a big country and United States is comparable with countries such as Singapore or Thailand!

I want you to comment on this and tell me what do you think about the reason.

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

10 Important trends in Transportation Management Systems

2006-05-11T21:02:00.000+02:00

Adrian Gonzalez of Arc Advisory Group had this interesting piece in SC Digest about 10 important trends in TMS market. Below, I have mentioned some of them which seem even more important to me:

- Addition of Multi-Mode Capabilities: With cost and capacity issues in trucking, and huge growth in offshoring, TMS solutions are starting to provide more robust support for rail and ocean shipping integrated with other modes, though there is still a way to go here.

- Move Towards Service Oriented Architecture: Support for SOA by TMS vendors will ease integration with ERP and other systems and enable more process-based approaches.

- Increase Focus on Performance Management: Scorecarding and sophisticating reporting systems are an increasingly important element of TMS implementations to leverage the rich trove of transportation-related data.

For Entrepreneurs Seeking To Exploit New Media

2006-05-05T07:52:00.000+02:00

The emergence of this new media is completely participatory and very complex from that is generally conceived by people. Orientation will decide the future actions and chances of running a successful business.

Following steps are very important to be a successful entrepreneur seeking to exploit this new media.

1. Background research on market

One has to do some market research such as which services and products are in more demand and what are the orientations /virtues of the companies (competitors) providing them. It is very important to understand the current market because it is changing everyday. This will help in deciding the orientation.

2. Target maket or customers

Next important thing is defining the target market. People are not willing to spend money unless they get what they want. There are majorly four kinds of people as (a) who are ESCAPISTS, (b) who are AESTHETIC and want ENRICHMENT, (c) who are interested in EDUCATION and ERICHMENT, (d) who are interested in ENTERTAINMENT. One needs to make sure that he is targeting/ catering the products/services to all of these four categories, if he wants to earn money.

3. Orientation & Service Quality

In-order to decide the orientation and service quality, apart from above two steps, one needs to know who are his competitors and what is their orientation, virtue, strategies for playing right game at right time. He needs to know how to get into the decision cycle of the big giants in the market. It is easy to make fast money once the business reputation is built. For this the orientation and service quality are very important. Example : Google

4. Technology & Innovation

Technology keeps changing everyday as the world is changing fast. So innovation plays an important role in business to succeed against the competitors. That is why the new concept of Business Intelligence is coined. One should make sure, that he is putting enough efforts in it. It may be possible to collaborate with small and individual firms in order to compete with some big giant in the market. Example of technology and innovation: As far as, creating content and downloading on web is concerned, many corporate giants had built the so called distribution pipes with download speeds greater than upload speeds. The possible improvement is making efficient use of the technology to provide much faster service for both uploading and downloading as compared to competitors. Example: Google

5. Service virtue and Competitors virtue

It is very important to have service virtue and for that one needs to know his competitors virtue. Customers should be happy and they should return back. Examples are: Ikea, Kansai Airport, Hard Rock Café, and Outback Steakhouse

6. Design for experience

It is a challenge to design and structure a business with emphasis on "Customer Experience." If one wants to make money, Customers should be happy and they should return back.
Examples are: Ikea, Kansai Airport, Hard Rock Café, and Outback Steakhouse

7. Design the configuration of service

One needs to make efficient use of the new media tools to give better services and also focus on collective intelligence in the form of new filtering and collaborating technologies. One needs to design the configuration of service in such a way that he should be able to provide what other competitors are not. I should efficiently use the network effects to create market places because sometimes, they only become barriers to entry to other business rivals.
Examples are: Google, Microsoft, Ikea, and Shouldice Hospital

8. Playing the right game

Once the business starts running well, the product growth or service cycle will reach its peak value and then will start maturing. It is important to maintain the market share, value created the quality of service and expectations of the customers. Playing the right game at right time is more important in in pre-mature state of service cycle and also after that to maintain the market share. Getting into the decision cycle of the big giants in the market, knowing their game strategies would help to solve this problem and improve the business prospects further.

The Meaning of Green

2006-04-26T09:17:00.000+02:00

Recently, the MIT center for transportation and logistics has published a material around environmental regulations and macro factors influences on supply chain among supply chain 2020 (SC2020) project, to shed a light on the greening of supply chain. This study which has been led by one of the MIT’s professor Randy Kirchain, addresses environmental issues as macro factors and the impacts of these factors on diverse aspects of supply chain such as global production system, business operations and planning in supply chains. I propose to have a look through the article ‘The Meaning of Green’.

What should we do about RFID vulnerabilties?

2006-04-14T13:21:00.000+02:00

It’s almost been a month since researchers at the Amsterdam's Free University created a radio frequency identity (RFID) chip infected with a virus to prove that RFID systems are vulnerable despite the extremely low memory capacity on the cheap chips.

Since the release of this news, there has been a lot of discussion going on about the root causes and effects on RFID adoption strategies. Anita has also covered some aspects of RFID vulnerability in her earlier articles. But the question still remains that: Should the companies take it as a really serious threat or not?

Well, I myself like the notion by Paul Faber of Industry Week which seems more robust:

The publicity surrounding this RFID virus research is no reason to delay any planned RFID implementations. The practical lesson to learn from the research is to ask the right questions of RFID integrators and software service providers. If you are currently planning an RFID technology project for your facility, simply include your current IT experts in the technology selection process. This will go a long way towards safeguarding you from any potential problems with RFID.

Managing Service Experience

2006-04-13T08:47:00.000+02:00

Often, the psychological behaviours of human being are very well used in the corporate world for running a successful business. In a way , it gives rise to the management philosophy.

As per the management philosophy, there are four kinds of people (customers.)

1. Those who always keep running from things and try to get something new, just to avoid thinking on what they did! = ESCAPIST

2. Those who do things for their interests and still believe in contemplating on the things they did. = ENRICHMENT AND AESHTETIC

3. Those who know right from the start what they want to do and where they are heading to! They do eaxactly that with some reasons behind. = EDUCATION AND ENRICHMENT

4. Those who are unaware of whats happening around them/ with them and who are really not bothered about it. May be bacause of their lack of ability, awareness, or some reasons. They just go by flow...join others in whatever they do! = ENTERTAINMENT

How the Management Guru's use these four categories for their strategies as Operations Strategies in Service Sector, for creating the disposition among customers, for creating organizational/business orientation, is interesting.

It is generally made sure by them that, they cater all above four categories of customers for running successfull business. It is a challenge to design and structure a business with emphasis on "Customer Experience", technically called "Managing Service Experience."

Now, the important question is- why talk about experience ?

It would give New Sources of Revenues when the needs of goods and services are essentially met.

Three sources of New Revenues are:

1. B2C - move towards providing "experience"
2. B2B - improve service, enhance work- experience ( thereby effectiveness), come up with new business processes.
3. Global Market - Provide goods and services to those who don't have them yet.

Extended examples of Designing for Experience are:

1. Frank Lloyd Wright's Unitary Temple
2. Ikea
3. Kansai Airport
4. Hard Rock Cafe
5. Outback Steakhouse

Extended examples of Desiging the Configuration of Service are:

1. Automobile sales, design and manufacturing

GM's Internet Overhaul, Technology Review

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1932/is_200210/ai_n7283969
http://www.manyworlds.com/default.aspx?from=/exploreCO.aspx&coid=CO104021291446

Ghosn's revival of Nissan

Carlos Ghosn; Shift - Inside Nissan's Historical Revival

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_03/b3916021_mz005.htm

2. Shouldice Hospital

My advice to you for reinventing your supply chain...

2006-04-08T16:18:00.000+02:00

Based on what I have seen in different companies, usually, you can translate what your target cutomers want into measurable obejectives in these 5 factors:

1) cost
2) speed
3) flexibility
4) quality
5) dependability

The key point here is which one is the most important to create value both for customers and the company (well, that's what the management is all about). Then the next step is to form the whole supply chain around this factor to fulfill customer demands. If the company succeeds in doing this, the results will be highly rewarding.A good example is my favorite company in fashion industry: ZARA

Zara's focus from the start has been on speed: production planning, new product development, transportation and all the other things have been designed in a way to achieve this goal. By focusing on speed, the company has found its way to become the most profitable fashion company in the world.What is the most important factor in your industry?

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

Standardization Club !

2006-04-03T13:04:00.000+02:00

I'm a fan of standardization management. If there existed a club for fans of this idea, I would definitely join that. The thing is when I use the term "standardization management", I mean companies can benefit alot from standardizing the components of their products and services. This issue decreases complexity through supply chain significantly.One example in service area is Southwest Airlines: because their planes are only Boeing 737, if for example one pilot becomes sick, they could easily assign another pilot to that plane and the pilot is familiar with cockpit, control panel and these stuff (no training is needed). Maintenance and repair and supplier relationship would also become much more easier too. I will try to touch apon this issue more in future.

Soaring RFID Usage through Immobilizers

2006-03-31T14:09:00.000+02:00

Undoubtedly the major present segment for adopting RFID technology is in vehicle entry and security systems, mainly the immobilizers (to immobilize a vehicle if not its RFID reader detects the right tag in the driver's ignition key). Although, adopting RFID in auto industry gets back to 20 years ago, mainly for providing visibility and security through the supply chain, yet, it has been employed for more than a decade in auto industry specially immobilizers. An attempt carried over by ABI Research Center (www.abiresearch.com) indicates that around 40% of new products of auto-makers in North America contain such immobilizers and the volume of utilizing this technology is soaring, generated $3.7 billion as revenues all around the world in 2005.

Is IT a remedy for GM's poor results?

2006-03-23T09:06:00.000+01:00

General Motors Corp. is turning to automation to improve its auto parts distribution system to dealers, ending practices that had made for a bumpy ride for its auto parts supply chain. By the end of 2007, GM expects to have its approximately 8,000 U.S. and Canadian dealers using its Retail Inventory Management (RIM) system, which relies on intelligence gleaned from nationwide parts sales to recommend parts-restocking policies at dealerships, Computer World reported.

Today, GM parts distribution relies heavily on the judgment and practices of individual dealer parts managers, who typically wait until the end of the week to submit a batch of parts orders. This has meant that a large percentage of parts orders have arrived at GM distribution centers at the same time, driving up labor costs because workers earn overtime pay as they rush to fill orders.

One main question is Is IT a remedy for GM's poor results? The answer is maybe. It's for sure that the giant auto maker must reduce its cost of development and also supply chain cost heavily in the next three years to survive and this plan is in line with cost reduction objective, but this should be combined by a set of other restructuring efforts acting in a coordinated way to be helpful.

Chinese university to tag 300,000 library items

2006-03-17T23:24:00.000+01:00

The recently merged RFID tag and inlay manufacturer UPM Raflatac has entered into an agreement with Shanghai RFID System Technology to provide its RFID tags to Jimei University Library in Xiamen, China - an agreement covering the supply of some 300,000 RFID tags. The new RFID system being deployed for Jimei University Library will help the library automate the borrowing and returning of library items, thereby reducing queuing times and theft. RFID technology will also speed up the sorting of library items, which will result in items being returned to the shelves quicker. Inventory is made much faster and easier by simply passing the RFID reader along the bookshelves.More libraries to come

According to Using RFID, rafsec's tags are designed specially for RFID library applications. Edward Lu, business development director (Asia) for UPM Raflatac's RFID business, said: "We're excited to be taking part in this large-scale RFID library project. We have been supplying RFID tags for library applications for many years in many parts of Asia but the technology is just starting take hold in China. Our collaboration with Shanghai RFID System Technology will permit us to expand our presence significantly in this rapidly growing market."Jimei University Library will move to phase two of the implementation in the second half of 2006, with more RFID implementations also to be conducted in other libraries throughout the campus.

(Source: SupplyChainer.com)

New research on supply chain vulnerability

2006-03-14T10:04:00.000+01:00

Using GPS technology, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security tracked cargo from several companies between 2002 and 2005. The goal of the project, named Operation Safe Commerce, was to identify weak links in the supply chain. According to a Feb. 28 report on ComputerPartner.com, the conclusion that is being drawn from this report is that "companies actually know very little about what goes on in their supply chains." The article cited unsafe practices such as: truckers dropping off containers without ever encountering terminal security, containers left in unsecured areas, and containers bypassing a port that's considered safe and traveling instead through a country that poses a greater threat -- without either the company or U.S. Customs and Border Protection being informed.

According to Industry Week, These practices will soon come under closer scrutiny, according to the article, as the government demands more information about the supply chain. While compliance with the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT, which requires that companies take responsibility for the security of their supply chain, is currently voluntary, it is believed that soon all companies will be required to participate. To view the full article which provides a detailed analysis of upcoming regulations visit: http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=2632

The art of a Chief Supply Chain Officer

2006-03-13T16:42:00.000+01:00

There are many fads, new concepts, cures and solutions in the area of supply chain management for a variety of problems and every day we hear about something new. Most of them promise better performance in supply chains. But an important point here is, what works in a company may not work in another one. Every company has to find right solution for its problems itself and there is no one size- fits all thing in the area. So personally, I don't think that general solutions available help companies to be pioneer and achieve competitive advantage. They may help companies to improve their performances but it will be marginal. In addition to the point that there is difference between one company's supply chain with another, I can add that there are also differences between one company's different supply chains and this is a point which is neglected in many cases. Different supply chains within the company need different strategies and different solutions. The challenge here is that in reality, it's not that easy to separate these supply chains and they interact with each other in a very complex way. The art of a Chief Supply Chain Officer is to determine which type of strategy is suitable for each chain and how to leverage the power of new technologies to implement that strategies.

Effective Supply Chain Manager (1)

2006-03-13T16:40:00.000+01:00

Recently I was thinking about the role of supply chain manager in the organization. Along with his day to day duties and responsibilities, an effective supply chain manager also does some other things which contribute to the profitability of a company. One important role in within the product development area. Supply chain manager can attend in weekly sessions about products development and provide designers and project managers with the valuable information like sourcing condition of some components or increased costs of applying some materials into the new products.