Companies need to look beyond best practices to find competitive advantage in their supply chains. A project at MIT called Supply Chain 2020 is searching for the hidden principles that will guide supply chains now and into an uncertain future.
Companies are figuring out which of their customers are most and least profitable, and treating them accordingly. But most have yet to adopt a supply-chain perspective.
Castrol's European operation faced a common supply-chain conundrum: excess inventory and poor customer service. A new planning department separate from execution, coupled with technology from ToolsGroup, got the company's supply chain back on track.
Preaching the gospel of Six Sigma, the company takes a global approach to the coordination of after-market parts planning, inventories and distribution.
To meet the ranking's exacting criteria, these companies' supply chains had to be driven by demand forecasting, use cutting edge technology and produce industry leading financial results.
Tracking and measuring the performance of various supply-chain functions is necessary but not sufficient for today's extended enterprise. Tying that performance to corporate strategic goals and closing the loop on execution to ensure continuous improvement are keys to effective performance management.