After working from 2007 to 2011 to transform its own supply chain, Celestica took what it learned to the market, offering managed supply chain services that complement its contract manufacturing business. Erwin Hermans, vice president of supply chain solutions, explains Celestica's strategy.
Mike Landry, president of Barkawi Management Consultants, North America, explains the "control tower" approach to supply chain management and why he believes this approach can enable companies to go beyond incremental improvements to real transformational change.
Even in today's data-hungry analytics environment, collecting and keeping every tiny granule of retail data - down to the level of each individual transaction and web click - might seem like overkill. But Sears Holdings has discovered that data storage costs have gotten low enough, and analytical tools have grown powerful enough, that this approach to Big Data has shortened the time needed for analytics projects by 60 percent to 70 percent, while also improving promotion conversions, lowering inventory levels and boosting sales.
When integrating its two major business units, First Solar partnered with Kinaxis to provide supply and demand planning capabilities, says Shellie Molina, vice president-global supply chain.
At the same time that supply chains are becoming increasingly global and complex, customers are expecting faster than ever service, says Vijay Subramanian, president of Prana Consulting.
Breaking down functional silos to create transparent and responsive end-to-end supply chains has long been an intractable supply chain challenge, but many companies are finding success using a control tower concept that gets everyone working off the same plan and focused on the same outcome.
To learn more about this approach, SupplyChainBrain convened a Power Lunch"”a roundtable discussion"”with four experts in the field: Paul Bittinger, former supply chain transformation manager, Procter & Gamble (now retired); Lora Cecere, founder and CEO, Supply Chain Insights; Don Gaspari, director, global materials and inventory, NCR Corp.; and Kirk Munroe, vice president of marketing, Kinaxis.
Apptricity, developer of the Jetstream suite of supply-chain, electronic procurement and financial productivity software, has made available a new tool to help users manage vehicle-based businesses.
While more than 75 percent of suppliers are confident in their ability to meet their customers' needs in 2013, one-third of respondents to ASQ's 2013 Manufacturing Outlook Survey say they anticipate a problem with a supplier next year, resulting in a shortage of parts or services.
As I waited to pay for my groceries the other day, a manager instructed a novice bagger on the art of separating lighter items, like the eggs, from heavier ones, such as a 12-pack of canned dog food. Like to like, the boss said; that way stuff doesn't get crushed on the ride home.
We are living in a world of speed, immediate accessibility and instant gratification. To keep up with the demand, manufacturers have to procure raw materials, build components, assemble finished goods and physically ship them across the world. Yet they are challenged with shorter and shorter lead times, an unlimited range of finished goods SKUs, selling goods and procuring materials globally and the unending pressure to do more with less. This concept of speed when applied to material replenishment has come to be known as "Inventory Velocity". There are some principles and practices on how to improve inventory velocity in this complex environment.