Businesses continue to cut back as the economy continues to worsen - seemingly every day. Cutting costs in a reasonable and smart manner is required; however, cost cutting alone rarely achieves success. As one of my mentors used to say, the best problem to have is a cost problem [...]
My procurement mentor exemplifies "profit through people" and can achieve more on a golf course in 2 hours than an entire team of Harvard MBA's could achieve in a year. He took all the complex terminology, confusing pricing indicators, economic trends and world events and turned it into a [...]
The key to effective cycle counting is to not get bogged down in resolving every dollar, but rather focus on the significant discrepancies. The main goal of cycle counting is to cycle through your inventory to ensure inventory accuracy on a consistent basis. (In contrast, a physical inventory is [...]
Customer collaboration is always a good idea; however, leveraging customer collaboration during challenging economic times can be one of the keys to success. Pick up the phone - some of the largest successes I've seen result from simple yet critical conversations. It can be as simple as calling a [...]
As I'm on my way to New York to give a speech on leveraging supply chain strategy to achieve a competitive advantage, I've been thinking about common themes with my speeches, articles, surveys and client observations - customer service emerged as a vital priority in all cases. Customer service [...]
Stay on top of trends to stand out from the crowd. Those executives who stay on top of the latest trends and search for patterns and trends in their business are far more successful than their counterparts. In my 20+ years of experience across multiple industries and globally, [...]
Communication is vital to project management success. Are you looking for different methods to make certain your messages is getting across? Published in "ExecutiveBrief" website, April, 2013 So much of an organization’s success is tied to project success! Can you think of any significant organization initiative or improvement that [...]
Sales & Operations Planning (sometimes known as SIOP or sales, inventory & operations planning) drives revenue, profitability and cash flow. Here are 5 tips to ensure success: Balances demand & supply – The key benefit of SIOP is to balance demand (sales forecasts) with supply (our ability to meet [...]
Apply lean methodologies to project management to gain a competitive advantage. Published in "Project Times" website, October, 2011 Click here for original article. There’s no doubt that there is a vast amount of interest in lean principles. I’ve had multiple client requests – both ones who are interested in [...]
We had an APICS student case study competition last weekend in San Diego. It was the best turnout yet – 12 teams, both undergrad and grad teams. The students were quite impressive in reviewing and resolving the case study. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo won 1st place for the [...]
