As customers continue to demand shorter lead times, it becomes imperative for manufacturers and distributors to become more responsive and improve order fulfillment cycle time. I've been working on my book The Amazon Effect lately, and it brings to mind the critical importance of responsiveness. There is no doubt [...]
Systems transactions are often treated as an afterthought but are critical to building a stable foundation for your business. As mundane as system transactions seem, I continually find that whether or not they are deemed a priority can make the difference between a successful operation or not. The bottom [...]
Being a systems pragmatist is critical in not making assumptions about your processes, but rather review every production step to uncover any issues that were not being addressed. When the idea of The Systems Pragmatist service line popped to mind, I was thinking about the critical importance of systems [...]
Several of my clients are in the aerospace industry. In that industry, supply chain readiness audits are commonplace. These are especially prevalent today as growth in that market is substantial. Companies must be prepared for significant growth to support the doubling of the world's fleet in the next 20 [...]
Though reducing inventory is generally advisable special situations arise when stocking inventory makes good business sense. Certainly reducing inventory on hand is typically preferred as you can accelerate your cash flow. It is one of the key focus areas of my consulting practice. I have found that reducing inventory [...]
Inventory accuracy depends on so many moving parts. But a top-to-bottom understanding of the process combined with speedy adjustment responses would dramatically improve accuracy, thus, boosting business results. How many times have we heard this? Or, perhaps your inventory resource will keep looking until he/she finds it; however, it [...]
Businesses with growth ambitions have to gauge the current capacity of every facet of their facility to plan future productivity. Capacity is a critical element for any business – and especially those interested in growth! A good place to start is to understand your capacity, which can mean different [...]
My APICS (#1 trade association for supply chain and operations management) chapter hosted an executive panel & networking symposium which was focused on the topic of innovation. Innovation is a critical topic! Problem solving and maintaining the status quo is no longer enough as customers expect more, regulations increase [...]
Bold ideas in employment may be counterintuitive but you have to be willing to fail to win big. I recently attended the Southern California Logistics & Supply Chain Summit hosted by the Center for Supply Chain & Logistics of the Drucker School of Management and the Inland Empire Economic [...]
