Back in 2013, Flextronics, a $30bn manufacturer and services organization, talked about its slant towards supply chain risk through constant improvement in supply chain visibility, agility and control. Flextronics defined visibility as "the ability of all members of a chain to see from one end of the pipeline to another" and control as "the ability to respond to disturbances in a timely manner with effective actions." - Gregory L. Schlegel CPIM, CSP, Jonah, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, Executive in Residence and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University
The British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are putting in motion plans that will change Britain's role in world manufacturing, for better or for worse. In its annual report, HSE proudly announced that they had removed 84 per cent of their regulations without compromising on safety. Depending on how you interpret the statistics, this has either made the UK a much stronger player in international trade or has taken the UK two steps backwards.
Analyst Insight: In 2010, as we began to offer a supply chain risk management class at Lehigh, our body of knowledge continued to expand and migrated into a very effective methodology to review, evaluate and benchmark a company's end-to-end supply chain maturity and inherent risk. The methodology encompassed 100 questions-of-discovery across 10 tenets of the supply chain resulting in a Red, Yellow & Green "spider diagram" profile of a company's supply chain maturity and inherent risk. – Gregory L. Schlegel, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University
Analyst Insight: In 2009, Dr. Robert Trent, Lehigh Supply Chain Management Department Chair, and I began to discuss supply chain risk in terms of how it was negatively impacting companies around the world. This dialogue led to capturing as much information available on the subject, codifying, classifying and developing a framework which became a graduate class in supply chain risk management and ultimately a new book, just launched, entitled Supply Chain Risk Management: An Emerging Discipline. – Gregory L. Schlegel, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University
Analyst Insight: There are exciting developments in technologies and processes in the area of network design. Currently, both processes and technologies are rapidly evolving, offering exciting opportunities. It is one of the most critical investments for supply chain leaders in 2015. – Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights
Analyst Insight: The greatest gap between performance and satisfaction of supply chain applications is in the area of demand planning. The reasons are many, but many are rooted in organizational and processes issues causing many people to throw in the towel too early. – Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights
The issue of ethical sourcing is a point of contention among procurement and supply chain professionals. The general sentiment is that the balancing act of being globally competitive and remaining a genuine corporate citizen is getting harder and harder. This is especially true for the rag trade. Apparel companies are consistently faced with the challenge of reducing costs while upholding ethical labour practices within their supply chain. How procurement and supply chain professionals in the sector manage this plays an increasingly important role in protecting company margins, brand reputation and growth. So what are the issues and factors at play and how can the risks involved be managed?
When Jim Bowes established the National Logistics & Distribution Conference 10 years ago his aim was to provide a small, non-sales oriented conference for senior supply chain executives. Bowes discusses how NLDC has evolved and what he thinks the future holds.
The supply-chain professional should be intimately involved at every step of new-product development, says Jillian Alexander, founder and managing director of Conduit Consulting.
Analyst Insight: In July 2013, Mary Driscoll of APQC had an interesting headline in the Harvard Business Review Blog — "Why are Companies Continually Getting Blind-sided by Risk?" Their risk management survey highlighted that 75 percent of respondents stated they were hit by at least one major supply chain disruption over the past two years. Another key finding: people at the front lines of business were hamstrung by lack of resources for visibility needed to adequately assess their supply chain risk. – Gregory L. Schlegel, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University
