Tag: Business

Business is the core genre for capturing all aspects of operations, inclusive of Supply Chain in all of its forms.

Tesla Supply Chain Issues and Lessons!

Featuring Our 10 Best Inventory Management Articles!
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Tesla’s relentless research and development produce innovative solutions powered by cutting-edge technology. Tesla is a perfect role model for using advanced automotive technologies that further enhance modern vehicles’ efficiency and safety.

Automobile makers, including Tesla, utilize automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other technologies when designing vehicles, including innovative accessory feature comparisons such as flow formed wheels vs forged. 

While Tesla’s milestones in automotive manufacturing are impressive, the company also faces a fair share of issues, including supply chain management and working with an employee car scheme provider.

These challenges can impact production timelines and the ability to meet growing consumer demand, necessitating continuous improvements in logistical strategies and employee incentive programs to maintain its competitive edge and ensure workforce satisfaction.

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The Amazon Effect is the New Walmart Effect!

Has Walmart Beat Amazon Using an Omnichannel Returns Strategy?

In 1994, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos read a statistic that the Internet had been growing at 2300 percent annually. He fashioned that changing tide into a business plan that has been breaking barriers across supply chain and e-commerce that has left an indelible mark with the Amazon effect.

Beginning with booksellers, the e-commerce giant has expedited the closure of many retailers and threatens to redefine the standards of shopping in a digital world. Retailers are forced to lower prices, optimize their systems and processes, and reduce profit margins in favor of competition; meanwhile, Amazon continues its trek toward dominance.

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Unleash Your Employees’ Ideas to Truly Change the Game!

Ground Rules for Creating a Game Changing High Performance Organization (HPO)!

Organizations that are either considered high performing or who aspire to become high performing understand that their employees are their greatest asset.  A company can only achieve its overall objectives if their employees are aligned, on board and driving toward those goals, and if their ideas are heard.

At its core your employees understand how well or how poorly the day-to-day processes in your company run better than anyone else.  They also have tremendous ideas on how to improve those processes, how to improve your metrics, and how to achieve your objectives.

So how do you tap in to that intellect, unleash those ideas, and empower your employees in an organized and efficient manner?  How do you get your finger on the pulse of what is on your employee’s minds?

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Augmented Reality (AR) is the Future of Supply Chain!

Augmented Reality (AR) is Set to Transform Retail and the Supply Chain!

Augmented Reality (AR) enables transformational change!

When I started in the distribution space, I was told “…business is simple…cases in, cases out.” Reports were on green bar paper and forklifts were everywhere. As the distribution space evolved, the reports became spreadsheets and forklifts remained very important as they are coupled with the latest and greatest automation.

Supply chain improvements over the last 15 years have been incremental at best. The advances we are making in the supply chain powered by Augmented Reality (AR) are going to be wildly disruptive. The supply chain community that leans into AR and gets it right will come out the clear winners for every perspective: simplicity, safety, quality and productivity.

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Procurement Outsourcing – Keep your Integrity!

Why Get a Product Sourcing Agent?

Like so many professionals Procurement people are very proud.  They are proud of the job that they do and the contributions that they make.  And they are most always proud of their ability to negotiate and get the best deal!

But at some point in their careers, especially in the age of Outsourcing, they are likely to have to deal with potential suppliers who provide Procurement services.  Procurement typically negotiates deals for other functions like I/T, HR, Manufacturing and every other area in the company.

Now they are faced with dealing with companies who basically state that they can do a better job at negotiating and Procurement than they do.

In the face of such a perceived, direct challenge to your abilities how do you and your Procurement team deal with this professionally and with integrity?

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A Case Study in Reverse Logistics Optimization!

Reverse Logistics and the Power of Your 3PL!

The application of advanced forecasting and planning methodologies improve inventory management in a critical, high-volume repair and reverse logistics optimization business, dramatically reducing costs and fulfillment cycles while improving customer satisfaction.

When one of the world’s leading manufacturers of personal computers set new goals for its European operations, ModusLink was there to help.

The OEM turned over management of one of the most critical, high-volume segments of its reverse logistics program—the processor business—saving the manufacturer millions of dollars each year; reducing excess inventory; increasing same-day, on-time ship rates; and improving customer satisfaction.

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Inventory Turnover Breakthrough … Go Back To The Basics!

Do You Want Inventory Turnover Breakthrough? Define and Manage The Levers!
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I had accepted a career changing challenge … how to change the company’s Inventory Turnover performance from being perennially worst in the Industry to being one of the best.  And I had to do it all within 1 year!

I had seen many very smart people tackle this problem over the years.  Yet they all seemed to come up short.  Sure they improved some aspect of Inventory levels or turnover but in aggregate these all seemed to amount to incremental, step function changes.  We needed game changing results!  We needed a game changing approach!  And we needed it now!

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Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with Brad Jackson, COO at North West Rubber!

Brad Jackson
Brad Jackson, EVP at Rakuten Kobo

At Supply Chain Game Changer we believe in sharing experiences and expertise from people in every industry and from across the globe.  As such we have introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action™” Interview series at Supply Chain Game Changer.  This interview is with Brad Jackson, Executive Vice President of Supply Chain Management and Device Sales at Rakuten Kobo, now at North West Rubber.

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KFC Ran Out of Chicken! What Supply Chain Lessons Can We Learn?

McDonald’s Supply Chain Challenge: Switching from Frozen to Fresh Burgers!
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There’s another unfortunate entry in the annals of Supply Chain failures that burst into the wider world of business and pop culture: More than half of the UK’s Kentucky Fried Chicken stores recently closed because KFC ran out of chicken!

We’ve written on the Argentus’ blog many times about Supply Chain misadventures, and how they can harm a brand’s reputation as well as profits – for example, maybe most memorably, in the case of Target, which had to retreat from the Canadian market after Supply Chain snafus led to empty shelves and disappointed customers.

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Lean in the Back Office … Why is it so difficult?

A “Don’t Touch” Strategy will Dramatically Lean out your Supply Chain!
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Implementing a Lean program on the Manufacturing floor, in a Warehouse operation, or in a Distribution Centre is challenging enough.  There are a series of process steps in which materials are transformed or moved in some fashion.  Try implementing Lean in the Back Office.

And your Lean program has at its core the objective of making these operations as efficient as possible. But when you try to apply these same Lean principles to the support organizations, or the back office, you are likely to experience a wide range of reactions.

So why is it so difficult to implement, and sustain, a Lean program in the Back Office of your organization?

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Do You Want Inventory Turnover Breakthrough? Define and Manage The Levers!

World Class Inventory Turnover Infographic!
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Taking a holistic approach in order to achieve Inventory Turnover Breakthrough results meant that I needed to consider the End To End Supply Chain.  As I thought through this approach there was really no other way if we were to achieve significant improvements to help the entire business in a short period of time.

In thinking about the End To End Supply Chain it was necessary to define all of the aspects that impact Inventory levels.   In short I needed to be able to manage:

  • All of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory is brought in to the company
  • All of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory moves through the company
  • And all of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory moves out of the company
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An Acquisition Gone Wrong! A Coup D’Etat in the Boardroom!

Cost Cutting! Brute Force or An Intelligent Program?

The CEO called an emergency meeting in the Boardroom.  The President of our Division, myself, the prior owners of a company we had just acquired, and one of our major shareholders/board members were to attend.  The sh*t had hit the fan with our latest acquisition.

It had only been a few months since the acquisition had been completed.  This was certainly long enough for the honeymoon period to be over.  But now it looked like we were quickly heading for a divorce.

What went wrong?

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Blockchain Continues to Make its Way into the Supply Chain World!

The 5 Levels of Supply Chain Transparency!

A few months back, we wrote about how Blockchain continues as an emerging technology and tool for Supply Chain transparency.

It’s a pretty incredible technology that stands to reshape big aspects of the economy in general and Supply Chain in particular – but it’s also pretty difficult for the common person to understand, which doesn’t help matters.

But Blockchain is coming, and it offers the potential to shake up Supply Chain and Logistics like few other technologies coming down the pike.

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Value Stream Mapping the Future State Process!

Unchaining Change Leadership

We had completed value stream mapping the current state processes across some very significant business processes in the company.  It took a fair amount of time even though we had the active involvement of subject matter experts and leaders from every functional organization.

When all was said and done the current state involved hundreds of process steps, almost 200 pain points, and dozens of iterative, repetitive loops.  The company was just being introduced to Lean process improvement techniques.  And as challenging as it was to reach a common understanding of what the current processes were the difficult part was about to start.

How were we going to define and map the Future State process?

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Characteristics of a Barrier Busting Culture!

Ground Rules for Creating a High Performance Organization (HPO)!
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When you embark on driving any kind of Game Changing Transformation you will most likely also need to change the Culture.  As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”.  So in order to get different results you may have to break through barriers and drive different behaviours from what are inherent in your current Culture.

Your organization is an ecosystem of policies, practices, processes and procedures that are the result of decisions, beliefs and  behaviours.  Over time much of this generally gets accepted as the way it’s always been done and is not open to challenge or to change.  Therein sacred cows, whether real or perceived, can become obstacles to making the changes needed to derive different results from the status quo.

So how do you change your Culture to achieve Game Changing results?

Continue reading “Characteristics of a Barrier Busting Culture!”