What is All the Hoopla Over ChatGPT? If you haven't been living under a rock, you've heard about ChatGPT and other AI (artificial intelligence) competitors such as Google's Bard and Elon Musk's AI platform. Everyone has gotten into the conversation, from marketing professionals to tech experts to people like [...]
Inflation, Recession, Both? We are in unique times with inflationary pressures continuing while recessionary trends are emerging as well. In either instance, it is vital to right-size inventory. It will not change anytime soon. With interest rates rising rapidly, it will curb demand while increasing the cost of capital. [...]
Lisa Anderson, manufacturing and supply chain expert and president of LMA Consulting Group discusses practical insights on how to unlock operating capital and fuel growth.
Lisa Anderson was interviewed by Lucie Newcomb for the podcast series “Staying Global While Staying Home”. They addressed the topic of the state of the global supply chain and strategies to successfully navigate with Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP / SIOP) with an emphasis on getting a handle on demand volatility. [...]
Every production planner has the challenging job of managing a complex set of conflicting priorities - meeting customer requested ship dates and new product trials, supporting manufacturing and logistics performance objectives, and addressing finance's objectives as it relates to inventory levels and cash flow.
A building products company missed several million dollars in revenue last year because they couldn't meet the demand. Unfortunately, this was a common occurrence. Sales increased dramatically, and they couldn't scale up their manufacturing operations and adapt their purchase requests quickly enough to take advantage of the opportunity.
Sales and operations planning is a dark art, and most organizations typically have a very ad-hoc process of forecasting due to its nature. But it's critical to be directionally correct with your plan. Or you might end up missing opportunities or losing customers. [...]
Predicting the Unpredictable Every client believes their demand cannot be predicted. After all, customers don't know what is going on in their end-to-end supply chain with the global supply chain chaos. Sales teams are optimistic and either forecast too much, hoping Operations will produce and store "just in case" [...]
2021 was plagued with shortages. As discussed in clients’ demand planning/ forecasting meetings, history is not representative of the future. In one example, the client experienced material shortages and couldn’t sell what customers requested, and so carrying that forecast into the New Year would deliberately carry that issue into 2022.
Clients are growing quickly. No matter the industry and company size, clients and colleagues are seeing growth. The only question is how quickly and whether they can keep up. Capacity constraints are popping up everywhere. On the logistics front, Southern California has no available space; the ports are backlogged, prices are rising [...]
