Posts Tagged ‘Supply Chain Improvement’

Here’s an audio interview with Dr. Alan Kosansky on the “Future of Supply Chain Management”.

TRANSCRIPT:

Interviewer: What’s the future of supply chain management? Many companies have implemented ERP software solutions, but if you’re relying on well-traveled, standardized software to manage your supply chain, you could actually be eroding your competitive edge. Joining us now to explain why is Dr. Alan Kosansky, co-founder and President of Profit Point. Alan, welcome!

Now, Alan—ERP Software has definitely become commonplace as a solution in supply chain management—it’s certainly convenient, but is the software on its own enough?

Kosansky: ERP software plays a critical role in the enterprise. From its inception it has provided the backbone for accounting and financial functions. As it has extended into supply chain functions, it allows us to quantitatively manage the supply chain. All these systems have enabled significant efficiencies for companies over the past 20 years. And they have become commoditized. Leading companies are both leveraging what these ERP have to offer AND ALSO defining complementary supply chain processes that offer competitive advantage. For those supply chain processes for which being as good as the marketplace is enough, out of the box ERP and APS solutions are great. However, for those supply chain processes where your company believes they can create and maintain competitive advantage, using the solutions that the marketplace is using is not enough.

Interviewer: At Profit Point you believe that the future of supply chain management is in optimization based decision making – what is optimization based decision making?

Kosansky: Supply Chain profitability is based on the price you sell your goods minus the total delivered cost of making and getting those products to your customers. While this may seem like simple arithmetic, it is actually very difficult for companies to accurately predict profitability and then make supply chain planning decisions that maximize their profitability. Firstly, Computing the total delivered cost is difficult. Secondly, even those companies that are have a centralized way to view all this data typically have difficulty making the tradeoffs implicit in their supply chain costs: Inventory or customer service? Manufacturing, warehousing or transportation costs? Optimization based decision making allows supply chain planners to both see all the relevant data and make the tradeoffs that lead to maximum profitability.

Interviewer: … and how can optimization based decision making help ‘unlock’ a company’s competitive edge?

Kosansky: Companies that identify supply chain processes where they have developed some sort of competitive advantage need to embody those processes in enabling technology that support this better decision-making. Most often, this includes some form of optimization decision technology that quickly evaluates alternative scenarios and identifies those decisions that lead to maximum profitability. By combining the big data that is available today, with leading edge decision making technologies, leading companies are beating their competitors in every aspect of their operations, including the supply chain.

Interviewer: Well Alan this is great news – thanks for coming on and telling us about it! That was Dr. Alan Kosansky, President of Profit Point. For more information go to ProfitPT.com… that’s ProfitPT.com.

Lesson 2:  You may not know the best and / or ultimate design for a tool until you try it out for some time in the real world.

In my last blog post, I talked about the waterproof boots I received as a gift and how I never knew what I was missing out on until I received and started using those boots.  In this blog post, I’d like to continue my story.

My waterproof boots were working just great for me.  Our dog, Blue, loved walking out in the wet fields behind our house and I didn’t mind that my boots were getting muddy since I could easily wash them off.  Several months after using my boots, I made an unfortunate discovery.  My right foot was getting wet!  Turns out my boots had developed a crack in the tread.  While my boots had several features I really liked and duct tape worked as a temporary repair, I decided I had to replace my boots.

I thought about getting a new pair of the same brand / model but was concerned that there was a design flaw and that these boots were not sturdy enough to walk with on a regular basis.  I decided to switch to a boot with a much better and stronger designed tread as well as one with the other features I really liked.

If I had gone to the store before owning and using the first pair of boots, I don’t think I could have articulated exactly what features I needed / wanted in a boot.  It was only after having an extended real world experience with the boots that I was able to much more clearly and confidently articulate what I wanted in a boot.

This is a common theme with our supply chain change projects.  Often these projects are a discovery process for us and our clients because neither of us definitively know a priori all the functionality that will ultimately end up in the finished tool.  That is why our typical approach is to begin with a pilot project that includes the minimum scope required to implement the basic functionality.  This allows for this process of discovery to unfold and while starting to deliver on the stream of anticipated benefits sooner rather than later.  This allows for the future releases of the tool to have a very tight scope on only those items that we are both confident can be delivered and will achieve the anticipated benefits.

Are you ready to get started on this journey?

Here I am with Blue and my new waterproof boots

Lesson 1:  You may not know what you are missing out on until you get something new.

My wife bought me a pair of waterproof boots and gave them to me 2 Christmases ago.  Admittedly, I was not the most gracious gift recipient.  I uttered the customary thank you but at that moment I had no idea what I was going to use these boots for.

As it turns out these boots were a great gift!  I often take our dog, Blue, out for a walk over lunch time in some fields behind our house.  Prior to receiving these boots as a gift, when the fields were wet and muddy, I would end up walking Blue on the street in our neighborhood.  Blue much preferred our jaunts in the fields and the waterproof boots enabled me to trudge through the mud without ruining my sneakers which is what was happening before if I ventured into the wet fields with them on.

My problem was that I was so into the groove of walking in the neighborhood when it was wet out that I really couldn’t conceive of another way.  I thought that Blue and I would just have to grin and bear it when it was wet out and walk in the neighborhood.  Receiving and then using these waterproof boots was kind of eye opening for me.  I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I received the boots.

We find that the same thing can be true with our clients.  They may just be doing things the way they have always been done and have a hard time believing that there is a better way.  The way they have done things has worked so far so why bother to change when you can stay the same!  While the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” may be applicable, how about changing so you can operate on a different plane.

Next week I’ll post Lesson 2.

What kind of risks are you prepared for?

As a supply chain manager, you have profound control over the operations of your business. However, it is not without limits, and mother nature can quickly and capriciously halt even the smoothest operation. Or other man-made events can seemingly conspire to prevent goods from crossing borders, or navigating traffic, or being produced and delivered on time. How can you predict where and when your supply chain may fall prey to unforeseen black swan events?

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. (Niels Bohr, Danish physicist)  But there are likely some future risks that your stockholders are thinking about that you might be expected to have prepare for. The post event second guessing phrase: “You should have known, or at least prepared for” has been heard in many corporate supply chain offices after recent supply chain breaking cataclysmic events: tsunami, hurricane, earthquake, you name it.

• What will happen to your supply chain if oil reaches $300 / barrel? What lanes will no longer be affordable, or even available?
• What will happen if sea level rises, causing ports to close, highways to flood, and rails lines to disappear?
• What will happen if the cost of a ton of CO2 is set to $50?
• What will happen if another conflict arises in the oil countries?
• What will happen if China’s economy shrinks substantially?
• What will happen if China’s economy really takes off?
• What will happen if China’s economy really slows down?
• What will happen if the US faces a serious drought in the mid-west?

What will happen if… you name it, it is lurking out there to have a potentially dramatic effect on your supply chain.

As a supply chain manager, your shareholders expect you to look at the effect on supply, transportation, manufacturing, and demand. The effect may be felt in scarcity, cost, availability, capacity, government controls, taxes, customer preference, and other factors.

Do you have a model of your supply chain that would allow you to run the what-if scenario to see how your supply chain and your business would fare in the face of these black swan events?

Driving toward a robust and fault tolerant supply chain  should be the goal of every supply chain manager. And a way to achieve that is to design it with disruption in mind.  Understanding the role (and the cost) of dual sourcing critical components, diversified manufacturing and warehousing, risk mitigating transportation contracting, on-shoring/off-shoring some manufacturing, environmental impacts, and customer preferences, just to begin the list, can be an overwhelming task. Yet, there are tools and processes that can help with this, and if you want to be able to face the difficulties of the future with confidence, do not ignore them.  The tools are about supply chain planning and modelling. The processes are about risk management, and robust supply chain design. Profit Point helps companies all over the world address these and other issues to make some of the of the best running supply chains anywhere.

The future is coming, are you ready for it?

DC Velocity featured an article entitled A Network Design is Never Done. The article, which included an interview with Profit Point’s Alan Kosansky, touches upon on the trend of large manufacturers to move from designing their supply chain networks once to continuously improving the design to meet customer demand and supplier mix, among other things.

You can read the complete article here.

There is nothing like a bit of vacation to help with perspective.

Recently, I read about the San Diego Big Boom fireworks fiasco — when an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display was spectacularly ruined after all 7,000 fireworks went off at the same time. If you haven’t seen the video, here is a link.

And I was reading an article in the local newspaper on the recent news on the Higgs: Getting from Cape Cod to Higgs boson read it here:

And I was thinking about how hard it is to know something, really know it. The data collected at CERN when they smash those particle streams together must look a lot like the first video. A ton of activity, all in a short time, and a bunch of noise in that Big Data. Imagine having to look at the fireworks video and then determine the list of all the individual type of fireworks that went up… I guess that is similar to what the folks at CERN have to do to find the single firecracker that is the Higgs boson.

Sometimes we are faced with seemingly overwhelming tasks of finding that needle in the haystack.

In our business, we help companies look among potentially many millions of choices to find the best way of operating their supply chains. Yeah, I know it is not the Higgs boson. But it could be a way to recover from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that disrupted operations literally overnight. It could be the way to restore profitability to an ailing business in a contracting economy. It could be a way to reduce the greenhouse footprint by eliminating unneeded transportation, or decrease water consumption in dry areas. It could be a way to expand in the best way to use assets and capital in the long term. It could be to reduce waste by stocking what the customers want.

These ways of running the business, of running the supply chain, that make a real difference, are made possible by the vast amounts of data being collected by ERP systems all over the world, every day. Big Data like the ‘point-of’sale’ info on each unit that is sold from a retailer. Big Data like actual transportation costs to move a unit from LA to Boston, or from Shanghai to LA. Big Data like the price elasticity of a product, or the number of products that can be in a certain warehouse. These data and many many other data points are being collected every day and can be utilized to improve the operation of the business in nearly real time. In our experience, much of the potential of this vast collection of data is going to waste. The vastness of the Big Data can itself appear to be overwhelming. Too many fireworks at once.

Having the data is only part of the solution. Businesses are adopting systems to organize that data and make it available to their business users in data warehouses and other data cubes. Business users are learning to devour that data with great visualization tools like Tableau and pivot tables. They are looking for the trends or anomalies that will allow them to learn something about their operations. And some businesses adopting more specialized tools to leverage that data into an automated way of looking deeper into the data. Optimization tools like our Profit Network, Profit Planner, or Profit Scheduler can process vast quantities of data to find the best way of configuring or operating the supply chain.
So, while it is not the Higgs boson that we help people find, businesses do rely on us to make sense of a big bang of data and hopefully see some fireworks along the way.

Uncovering the Value Hiding Behind Environmental Improvement Investments

Supply Chain optimization is a topic of increasing interest today, whether the main intention is to maximize the efficiency of one’s global supply chain system or to pro-actively make it greener. There are many changes that can be made to improve the performance of a supply chain, ranging from where materials are purchased, the types of materials purchased, how those materials get to you, how your products are distributed, and many more. An additional question on the mind of some decision makers is: Can I minimize my environmental footprint and improve my profits at the same time?

Many changes you make to your supply chain could either intentionally – or unintentionally – make it greener, so effectively reducing the carbon footprint of the product or material at the point that it arrives at your receiving bay. Under the right circumstances, if the reduced carbon footprint results from a conscious decision you make and involves a change from ‘the way things were’, then there might be an opportunity to capture some financial value from that decision in the form of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission credits, even when these emission reductions occur at a facility other than yours (Scope 3 emissions under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol).

As an example, let’s consider the possible implications of changes in the transportation component of the footprint and decisions that might allow for the creation of additional value in the form of GHG emission credits. In simple terms, credits might be earned if overall fuel usage is reduced by making changes to the trucks or their operation, such as the type of lubricant, wheel width, idling elimination (where it is not mandated), minimizing empty trips, switching from trucks to rail or water transport, using only trucks with pre-defined retrofit packages, using only hybrid trucks for local transportation and insisting on ocean going vessels having certain fuel economy improvement strategies installed. These are just some of the ways fuel can be saved. If, as a result of your decisions or choices made, the total amount of fuel and emissions is reduced, then valuable emission credits could be earned. It is worth noting that capturing those credits is dependent on following mandated requirements and gaining approval for the project.)

Global Market for GHG Credits

If your corporate environmental strategy requires that you retain ownership of these reductions, then you keep the credits created and the value of those credits should be placed on the balance sheet as a Capital Asset. Alternatively, if you are able, the credits can be sold on the open market and the cash realized and placed on the balance sheet. Either way, shareholders will not only get the ‘feel good’ benefit of the environmental improvement, but also the financial benefit from improvement to the balance sheet. If preferred, the credits can be sold to directly offset the purchase price of the material involved, effectively reducing that price and so increasing the margin on the sales price of the end-product and again improving the bottom line. If capital investment is required as part of the supply chain optimization, the credit value can also be a way to shorten the payback period and improve the ROI, or to allow an optimization to occur

So, when you consider improving your environmental impact or optimizing your supply chain, consider the possibility that there might be additional value to unlock if you include both environmental and traditional business variables in your supply chain improvement efforts.

Written by: Peter Chant, President, The FReMCo Corporation Inc.

What is it about the Autobahn that is so alluring? The idea of driving on a road without a speed limit is thrilling. Or how about breaking the sound barrier in a jet plane?

At the risk of sounding like a supply chain nerd, here at Profit Point, I get a similar sense of exhilaration in enabling our clients to increase the velocity in their supply chains by implementing decision support tools that enable faster and better decisions.

These decision support tools enable faster and better decisions in at least the following 3 ways:

1. Faster visibility to the data – By having a software tool that holds all the data needed to make a particular decision with automated interfaces to source systems, our users don’t have to spend countless hours combing through multiple spreadsheets and other software systems to get the data they need. We bring all the data needed together in one place for the user to be able to make effective decisions.

2. Faster understanding of the data – Supply chain decision support tools have huge amounts of data coming in and going out of them. Making sense of it all can be challenging. Typically what we do is build tools that allow the user to sort through all this data by:

a. Having graphical user interfaces that make it easier to understand what is going on. After all a picture is worth a thousand numbers any day of the week.

b. Show only the exceptions or problems that need to be resolved to help the user focus on what needs to be changed.

3. Faster processing of the data – Oftentimes we will automate tasks that are menial and time consuming or if the task is very complex it may be appropriate to employ an optimization or heuristic solution approach to speed getting to a feasible or better solution. We like to call these “Power Assist” tools that greatly ease the burden on the user while still giving them ultimate control over the decisions that are made.

Do you feel the need for more speed in your supply chain? Give us a call so we can discuss how we can help to get you moving faster.

Mark Rockey

A husband, two kids and a golden retriever later…  I am back to implementations in Supply Chain planning and scheduling.  To my surprise, the same challenges I encountered 10 years ago remain in force today:  data, defining business processes, data, implementing software, data, training people, data, supporting the change to a new system and data.

Data collection remains one of the cornerstones of success of a supply chain planning or scheduling implementation.  Though scores of data may exist in a company’s business, harnessing it to feed into a planning or scheduling model can be extremely complex and time consuming.  Interestingly, the data collection process often drives an elucidation of manufacturing practices and process flows, and clients learn what they do and don’t know about their business.  This may seem backwards and risky in terms of getting things out of order.  In a perfect world, a thorough understanding of manufacturing and business processes would pave the way towards building an Advanced Planning and/or Scheduling System.  In reality, they often happen in tandem and are evolutionary in nature.

Deciding how data will be housed, derived and propagated early on in an implementation will pay off in the long run.   Establishing a systematic, automated way to update and propagate data is equally important as the decision of what software system to use.  It is worth the investment to take the time to put this automation in place as a greater and greater number of products are added to a system the data will remain manageable and scalable.

From PC to Cloud, emails to tweets, networking happy hours to LinkedIn, it is nice to know some things stay the same.

When working with our clients we try to understand the reasons why they decided to use an outside consultant. I surveyed several of our clients to understand their thinking on this topic and the content of this blog entry should largely be credited to them.

While there are a number of reasons for engaging an outside consultant, those reasons fall into three broad categories which are

1) Resource capability

2) Resource availability

3) Training / Partnership

Resource Capability

In planning a project a key question to ask is “What skillsets are required to accomplish the work?” It may not be cost effective to maintain certain skillsets in-house if those skillsets

1) are not part of the core mission of your company and / or

2) are readily available at a reasonable cost on the outside.

Resource capability, though, can be thought of in broader terms than just expertise. An outside consultant can provide

1) a fresh perspective

2) objectivity

3) knowledge of best-in-class practices

4) political cover

In these kinds of situations, engaging outside resources makes eminent sense.

Resource Availability

Once you have settled on the skillsets required to accomplish the work, if those skillsets are not available in-house then obviously you’ll need to engage outside resources. But if they are available in-house you’ll need to determine if those in-house resources have enough capacity to accomplish the work within the required time frame.

If the resources needed are not available over the time frame required then an option is to make a permanent hire but there may not be enough time to do a proper search and after you hire someone presumably for the long term.

By engaging an outside consultant you can almost always get that resource working on your project sooner and will have that resource engaged for a limited time for a known cost up front (assuming fixed pricing).

Training / Partnership

Some of our customers want to have capable and available resources to do the work in house but do not currently. In those cases, an outside resource can help you build the capability in house via a partnership of training and / or mentoring. Here the clear end goal is to develop the long term in house resources to continue the work.

So whether it is to complement the capabilities of your organization supplement existing capacity or train and mentor new in house skills, consider how outside resources might help you meet your objectives.

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is an integrated business management process that enables a company to continually balance and manage the supply chain supply and demand to achieve its strategic and tactical business objectives. More and more business leaders are relying on S&OP to align and improve decision making across the disparate parts of their organization. And, many companies are still adopting and improving the techniques and tools that they use to improve S&OP.

So this year, we conducted an S&OP Survey of key decision makers to learn more about their challenges, concerns and expectation for 2012. Business leaders from a variety of companies and industries were polled. Here’s what we learned:

• Many companies lack the metrics needed to capture the benefits from S&OP
• Scenario and sensitivity analysis is the tool of choice for S&OP planners who understand that sales forecasts are imperfect
• More companies are beginning to collaborate with suppliers and customers to improve S&OP
• For many companies, point-of-sale (POS) data may be the key to effective sales and operations planning

To read the complete report, including our conclusions, click the link below:

Download the S&OP Survey

To learn more about Profit Point’s S&OP services and S&OP software, call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

Change is hard.

Collapsed Souffle

In the businesses that I help, change comes for several reasons. It may be thrust upon the business from the outside, a change in the competitive landscape for instance, or a new regulation.   It may come from some innovative source within the company, looking for cost savings to increase profitability of productivity, or a new process or product with increased productivity. Change can come from the top down, or from the bottom up. Change can come in a directed way, as part of a larger program, or organically as part of a larger cultural shift.  Change can come that makes your work easier, or harder, and may even eliminate a portion (or all) of the job that you were doing. Change can come to increase the bottom line or the top line. But primarily change comes to continue the adaptation of the company to the business environment.  Change is the response to the Darwinian selector for businesses.  Adapt or decline. Change is necessary.  It is clear to me from my experience that businesses need to change to stay relevant.

This may seem trite or trivial, but accepting that change is not only inevitable, but that it is good, is the shift in attitude that separates the best companies (and best employees) from the others.

So, you say, I see the need to change, it is not the change itself that is so difficult, but rather the way that it is inflicted upon us that makes it hard.  So, why does it have to be so hard?  Good question.

Effective managers know that change is necessary but hard. They are wary of making changes, and rightly so.  Most change projects fail. People generally just don’t like it.  Netflix is a great example.  Recently, Netflix separated their streaming movie service from their DVD rental business. After what I am sure must have been careful planning, they announced the change, and formed Quikster, the DVD rental site, and the response from the customer base was awful. As you likely know, Netflix, faced with the terrible reception from their customer base and stockholders, reversed their decision to separate streaming from DVDs. What was likely planned as a very important change, failed dead. Dead, dead, dead. Change can be risky too.

If change is necessary, but hard and risky… how can you tame this unruly beast?

The secret of change is that it relies on three things: People, Process, and Technology. I name them in the order in which they are important.

People are the most important agents relative to change, since they are the one who decide on the success or failure of the change. People decided that the Netflix change was dead. People decide all the time about whether to adopt change. And people can be capricious and fickle. People are sensitive to the delivery of the change.  They peer into the future to try to understand the affect it will have on them, and if they do not like what they see…  It is the real people in the organization who have to live with the change, who have to make it work, and learn the new, and unlearn the old. It is likely the very same people who have proudly constructed the current situation that will have to let go of their ‘old’ way of doing things to adopt to the new. Barriers to change exist in many directions in the minds of people.  I know this to be true… in making change happen, if you are not sensitive to the people who you are asking to change, and address their fears and concerns, the change will never be accepted.  If you do not give them a clear sense of the future state and where they will be in it, and why it is a better place, they will resist the change and have a very high likely hood of stopping the change, either openly, or more likely passively and quietly, and you may never know why the fabulously planned for change project failed.

Process is the next aspect of a change project that matters.  A better business process is what drives costs down. Avoiding duplication of efforts, and removing extra steps. Looking at alternatives in a ‘what-if’ manner, in order to make better decisions, these are what make businesses smarter, faster, better.  A better business process is like getting a better recipe for the kitchen. Yet, no matter how good a recipe; it still relies on the chef to execute it and the ovens to perform properly. Every business is looking for better business processes, just as every Chef is looking for new recipes.   But putting an expert soufflé recipe, where the soufflé riser higher, in the hands of an inexperienced Chef does not always yield a better soufflé.  People really do matter more than the process.

Technology is the last aspect of the three that effect change. Better technology enables better processes. A better oven does not make a Chef better.  The Chef gets better when they learn to use the new oven in better ways, when they change the way they make the soufflé, since the oven can do it.  A better oven does not do it by itself.  An oven is just an oven. In the same way, better technology is still just technology.  It by itself changes nothing.  New processes can be built that use it, and people can be encouraged to use it in the new process.  Technology changes are the least difficult to implement, and it is likely due to this fact that they are often fixed upon as the simple answer to what are complex business problems requiring a comprehensive approach to changing the business via it people, process, and technology.

Nice Souffle

Change is necessary, but hard and risky. Without change businesses will miss opportunities to adapt to the unforgiving business world, and decline. However, change can be tamed if the attitude towards it is changed to be considered a good thing, and is addressed with a focus on people, process and technology, in that order.  Done right, you can implement the change that will increase the bottom line and avoid a collapse of your soufflé.

This article written by Alan Kosansky and Jim Piermarini was originally published in Supply Chain Brain.

More than a decade has passed since businesses started using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for managing data and transactions throughout the supply chain. Traditionally, ERP systems have provided transparency and insight into transaction-level data in the supply chain that support important business planning activities. Now, a new generation of applications is being developed to help fill the gaps between general business planning and business-specific, tactical and strategic decisions. These ERP-connected applications offer supply chain executives previously unavailable analysis and insights into the decisions that directly impact customer service, profitability and competitive advantage.

Supply Chains Differences

Supply chains are as different as the companies and people that run them. Some companies view their supply chain operations as a “utility” that is expected to function without any investment in intellectual capital. These organizations are content to rely on industry best practices in their supply chain operations and follow the leaders (or the features that are added by ERP software providers) in supply chain improvement. Other organizations see their supply chain operations as a strategic opportunity to develop a competitive advantage and increase market share. They know that with some small departures from the norm and a modest investment in intellectual capital, supply chains can provide enhanced performance to the business. These companies understand that there are opportunities for creative and unique ideas in the supply chain to improve company performance and achieve business strategy objectives.

Today, many C-level executives see their ERP systems as key enablers to company productivity, and for the most part, they are correct. Since ERP systems perform many valuable functions, there is a natural assumption that they can handle whatever business strategy the company adopts. However, new business ideas by definition run the risk of stressing the ERP system features beyond their ability to cope. Usually these failures are discovered only during the implementation of a new business strategy. So what happens when the ERP system fails to support the new business strategy in certain critical details? Those working in the trenches know this scenario all too well. But, what can be done to implement strategic supply chain initiatives when ERP is not equipped to handle business-specific initiatives?

Making the ERP Work

There are three possible approaches for implementing supply chain planning activities that offer a company a competitive advantage:

1. Figure out how to get the ERP system to do it. This approach works well if the company’s needs align well with current industry practices supported by ERP systems. Otherwise, companies may find themselves going down a path that consumes significant resources for a poor fit in the end. Companies that adhere to this path typically do so in part because there is a strong C-level edict in favor of simple, clean upgrades for the ERP system. Faced with this, the IT organization has enormous power to shape the nature of the supply chain operation to fit within the established ERP norms, and thus can act as a barrier for business innovation and supply chain improvement.

2.Modify the ERP system to provide new functionality. This is an approach often promoted by IT organizations committed to supporting the fewest number of tools. While this is an important cost management objective, it is important to understand the full cost to implement and support the system over the long term. What can be accomplished is often limited by the lack of flexibility in large ERP systems and IT organizations. Since ERP systems are mission-critical systems, the support and maintenance of the core functions are of paramount importance. This task, placed on a limited IT staff, leads to large backlogs of enhancement work and long queue times. And while IT departments are well-equipped to manage their primary assets, few if any IT departments have the requisite domain knowledge to cross over into supply chain optimization. Given long wait times, organizations will often choose the simplest approximation of the business change that can be ushered to the top of the queue. This approach can result in a quick-fix style of strategy implementation, rather than a priority-based feature development, and may leave the most important aspects of the initiative lingering in the queue.

3. Add an integrated solution to the ERP system that replaces one or more functions that are needed to achieve the business strategy. This could be from an out-of-the-box third-party provider, or for full competitive advantage, a targeted or custom supply chain application that integrates with the company’s ERP data. This approach has the benefit of including priority-based features that the current ERP system lacks, and the additional benefit of avoiding the ERP enhancement queue. The downside, however, is that it suffers from the stigma of being yet another application and not the ERP system itself. This usually presents a hurdle that requires a careful analysis to understand the total cost relative to the strategic benefit. While not all business changes will overcome this roadblock, there are good reasons to look at this approach. These include:

• Ensuring a tight fit between the business strategy and the tool execution
• Minimizing the cost, overhead, and extra setup and maintenance in un-needed functions from a shrink-wrapped general purpose tool
• Providing the marketplace with a specialized and unique operation of the supply chain for competitive advantage.

Example from the Field

A leading consumer electronics company with about $2bn in annual sales implemented an integrated solution to its ERP system to manage its order fulfillment process for competitive advantage. The company had recently modified its corporate strategy to increase retail sales through its “big box” customers (Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, etc.). However, key service level agreements were not being met for these customers due to lower than expected order fulfillment measures. A simple inventory analysis recommended large increases in the stock required at the warehouse, with some method of segregating inventory for each big-box customer so it could not be taken by orders from other customers.

In this case, one of the leading causes of low service for customers was that they ordered “just-in-time”. These JIT orders were not being given any priority over other customers’ orders with longer lead times. The company noted that these important customers may have provided accurate plan information, but that was not being used to assure them any better service. The analysis recommended that separate stocks of inventory be set up based on the big-box planning information, and that other customers not be allowed to take from those inventory locations. This would result in a large increase in overall stocks, but should achieve the desired increase in service levels.

One manager questioned this recommendation, wanting to know why the ERP system did not use the big-box planning information to appropriately manage the company’s service levels. She also questioned what could be done to avoid increasing her inventory risk and yet still achieve the business strategy. This is a question many managers face when their analysts say that to improve service you need to increase inventory levels. Often there are alternatives. This key manager’s insight set the path for her company to make a significant shift in their supply chain operations, with remarkable benefits. What follows will answer the question: Can I raise the service level of my key customers without increasing my inventory and capital risk? The short answer is, “yes”. Significant service benefits and risk reductions can be achieved, but only if you are willing to deviate from your ERP’s standard approach to implementing key supply chain initiatives.

The industry standard approach for assigning available inventory to open orders is to use a FIFO (first in, first out) approach. This approach prioritizes orders based on when the order was received and assigns on-hand inventory to those orders that were received and entered into the system first. While this approach has a degree of fairness to it, and is available in all ERP systems, it did not align well with the business objectives of this company. It actually penalized key customers who issued JIT purchase orders while giving ample planning information. These JIT orders would have to wait until all the older orders, from non-key customers, were allocated before they would be assigned any inventory.

The standard ERP process does not take into consideration the customer’s strategic importance or their planning information. Given this FIFO process, the internal recommendation makes sense: set up separate safety stocks for each big-box customer (based on their planning information), in separate inventory locations, and make a rule that directs big-box orders to their separate inventory.

But having separate safety stocks violates the principle that more customers need lower inventory together, than each does individually. Pooling the inventory helps to avoid unnecessary capital risk. The standard ERP FIFO inventory assignment process could be replaced with one that met customer needs more effectively.

The company embarked on a project to take into account several important factors when deciding how much inventory to assign to each order:

• The priority of the customer
• The amount of inventory actually in the sales channel of the customer, and
• The planning information that the customer shared with the company.

Customer priority is a key and strategic factor in deciding which customers receive product, when inventory availability is limited or delayed. This business need meant that strategic and high-volume customers should typically be serviced before others. However, this may not be the case if a strategic or high-volume customer happens to be sitting on a lot of inventory in their channel. In these cases, it may be preferable to share the wealth with smaller volume resellers to maximize the sell-through to retail customers. Moreover, these rules may apply differently for each SKU in a manufacturer’s product line.

The business rules to implement these sorts of complex trade-offs can get complicated. If one wants to retain a certain amount of flexibility in these rules, then the ERP system is a poor place to make these decisions. However, since most, if not all, of the data resides in the ERP system, these decisions must be tightly integrated with the data and transaction handling within the ERP system. So an application was constructed to manage the inventory assignment process in this way to more closely match the business strategy. The new application is run several times a day, extracting needed info from the ERP system, making the assignment of inventory to all open orders, and sending back the info to the ERP system.

Using this integrated solution, overall service levels for these key customers were sharply increased, prompting several supply chain awards from these big-box customers. As a result of the increase in service level, Walmart (a strategic customer) was so pleased they chose to increase their orders of all this company’s products by 100 percent. The overall inventory did not increase.

The new method demonstrated that pooled inventory was an effective approach to containing inventory levels. In subsequent versions of this application, the integration of point of sale data has allowed even more control over the inventory in the various channels to market. As a result, this company has declared this application a business-critical application. It overcame the hurdle, and the application can defend its spot on the chart of critical business applications alongside the ERP system.

Integrated Solution Success

Using an integrated solution to the ERP system was a win-win approach that allows the business the flexibility to manage order fulfillment for competitive advantage while maintaining the benefits of centralized data and the strong transactional handling capabilities delivered by ERP.

But order fulfillment is not the only area where there is opportunity to supplement the strengths of ERP with flexible and powerful business optimization processes and tools. Other areas where leading companies have decided to enhance their ERP capabilities include optimization-based infrastructure planning, sales and operation planning, distribution route and territory planning, transportation bid optimization, transportation fleet planning, and production scheduling.

These are just some examples of where complex and/or strategic business rules can provide competitive advantage through improved supply chain performance. While ERP systems remain the backbone of all successful large business operations today, they are not the only path available to companies who desire to apply innovative approaches to their business and supporting supply chain activities. Global enterprises that seek a competitive advantage now have the opportunity to leverage their ERP investments by integrating optimization-based solutions to key business strategies.

This article written by Alan Kosansky and Ted Schaefer originally appeared in Industry Week.

“Network structure, which determines 75%-80% of total supply chain costs, offers the biggest opportunity to reduce those expenditures.”

A recent study of supply chain activities indicated that as much as 80% of total supply chain costs are determined by the network in place and not by the decisions the supply chain team makes on a daily basis within that network. The cause can be attributed to infrastructure, which significantly determines the types of decisions and degrees of freedom that are available to supply chain decision makers. As a result, many companies have literally stumbled into pitfalls associated with warehouses, distribution centers and sources of supply (manufacturing, supplier locations, etc.) because they lacked thoughtful design.

There is help available for vigilant executives in the form of 10 guidelines to implement necessary cost saving measures. All are applicable whether the company is pursuing a growth strategy or struggling with underutilized assets in a challenging economy. Keeping these guidelines at the forefront of consideration can create opportunities to ease pressures on margin and the bottom line.

1.  Network structure, which determines 75%- 80% of total supply chain costs, offers the biggest opportunity to reduce those expenditures.

That’s because when manufacturing and distribution assets are in place, and major transportation contracts are negotiated, actions to improve operations and efficiencies in the supply chain are limited. The time to discover the biggest supply chain improvement opportunities is during assessment or reassessment of the infrastructure in place; e.g. manufacturing capability, raw material sourcing, major transportation lanes, distribution facilities and delivery to customers.

2. Optimize supply chain infrastructure to realize maximal cost savings.

A company’s existing supply chain infrastructure is a primary cause of daily disruptions and short-term challenges. Those companies that experience the smoothest and most profitable operations are the ones who routinely re-evaluate both operations and infrastructure. Those who reevaluate as a matter of procedure tend to become supply chain and profitability leaders. A recurring evaluation of infrastructure should be considered a necessity.

3. Understand the changes that can be impacted.

Change is inevitable, and the response to it will determine a company’s profitability. First assure that the processes and tools are in place to recognize the changes occurring in the supply chain. Then identify and analyze potential courses of actions and communicate the execution plan.

4. Consider technological analysis to make the supply chain decisions.

Spreadsheet analysis can evaluate a potential change in a business plan or supply/demand balance and perhaps project the impact of a given course of action. However when decisions involve multiple products made across multiple manufacturing sites, shipping and distribution point issues while serving thousands of customers, companies need sophisticated tools to effectively consider all the options to assure maximization of every supply chain infrastructure.

5. Modern infrastructure planning requires a collaborative effort.

Good supply chain operations happen because the people in charge of different aspects (sales, manufacturing, logistics, procurement and finance) are effectively communicating by:

• Providing the critical data necessary to make the best overall decisions.
• Understanding how each critical decision \impacts them.
• Informing each department of every decision and the steps they need to implement.

6. The planning process needs to include many different scenarios to ensure a robust solution.

Even with collaboration across all of the stakeholders, the supply chain infrastructure design process depends on forecasts of the future that will not all prove to be accurate; e.g. customer demand, competitors’ actions, cost of raw materials and transportation. Those who recognize the uncertainty of the data that drives their business planning can use supply chain tools to explore different possible futures and evaluate a course of action. That way they can confidently make decisions that will perform well across a wide range of possible futures and position themselves for a positive return.

7. Consider hybrid solutions to ensure low-cost, high level customer service.

Simplified assumptions are quite common during evaluation and analysis of complex supply chain operations. These may cause managers to overlook opportunities that are combinations or hybrids. For example, instead of sourcing 100% of a raw material from a low-cost country, perhaps optimal customer service at lower costs can be achieved by sourcing 80% to the low-cost provider and 20% to a higher cost and more reliable alternate supplier. Another example is demand variation by day of the week, which may warrant different operations on different days. Hybrid solutions are frequently solutions for optimal mix of customer service and cost, however they are often difficult to identify and evaluate.

8. Models and analysis mean nothing without implementation.

A good supply chain infrastructure planning process begins with solid analysis and evaluation of various scenarios to identify an optimal course of action. However, it is not complete without implementation planning, which must address the cultural and organizational issues that too often prevent companies from achieving the gains that have been projected. If there is resistance within the organization to change, it may be necessary to stage the implementation in increments to gain credibility before tackling the more strategic approach.

9. Optimized supply chains minimize inefficiencies.

A good supply chain infrastructure planning process goes beyond elimination of waste to analysis of benefits and tradeoffs among the different drivers of sustainability in the supply chain. This by definition means that you are creating a greener and more sustainable operation. One example is analysis of tradeoffs between profit and other sustainability measures (for example CO₂emissions). Using tools to analyze the total impact of different courses of action can optimize decision making to meet the overall objectives.

10. The answer is in the data.

Assure the accuracy of the data, and then present it to the right people (See #5).

Roadmap for the Future

Supply and logistic executives recognize the importance of developing new and improved ways to understand and use the volumes of data to help them find and utilize the best approach. It is incumbent upon them to ensure that each aspect of the operation is fully aligned to business strategy and goals, which is the purpose of these guidelines. They should be considered a roadmap combining sound business management practices with the newest technologies and tools as a path to success.

Alan Kosansky, Ph.D., is president and Ted Schaefer is director of logistics and supply chain services of Profit Point Inc.. Profit Point, based in North Brookfield, Mass., is a provider of supply chain optimization systems providing such services as infrastructure and supply chain planning, scheduling, distribution and warehouse utilization improvement.

At Profit Point, we often repeat the mantra “People, Process, Technology.”  All three are important for the kinds of projects we work on.  You have to have good systems (the technology part) that support good work processes and people that follow the process and use the systems.  If your people are not committed to following the process and using the systems, you are going nowhere fast.

Recently we were discussing with a senior manager at one of our clients what makes for a good Sales and Operations Planning Process (S&OP Process).  Being someone who is more of a process and technology guy I was thinking that he might say something like “You have to have a well thought out work process that is clearly communicated to everyone involved” or “You have to have a system that is easy to work with that supports the work process well.”  WRONG!

The first thing he mentioned was that senior management needed to be openly committed to the process and systems.  He illustrated this for us by recounting what another senior manager at this same client said during an S&OP meeting with a large group.  The group was going back and forth discussing a “potential” order from a customer and this particular senior manager said “If it’s not in the system then it’s a rumor and we don’t plan and schedule for rumors.”

As you can imagine, this cut down on the chatter in the room quite quickly.  This client had spent a lot of time and money developing processes and systems that worked well and those two things are necessary but not sufficient.  You have to have leadership that says “We have a work process to follow and a system to use to support executing that process.  Follow the process and use the system.”

Next you have to have people who do exactly that!  If this is not happening then as I heard from another executive “Either the people will change or the people will change!”

You have to be able to trust the data in the system but really at its root this boils down to trusting the people who entered the data in the system.  As I was reminded, this starts at the top!

Okay. I am an anomaly. I live in Utah and drink coffee. The majority of the people that live in Utah do not drink coffee, and that is OK, but I do. So, is there a shortage of coffee Cafés in Utah? No. There are many cafés and several that serve outstanding coffee.

We have an exceptional espresso café downtown, located on a side street off of Main. They roast their own coffee and use triple certified organic grown beans. It is the type of place the local coffee lovers go to hang out and have good conversation over a morning or afternoon latté or espresso. Possibly the best coffee I have ever had. What is interesting to me is that a large percentage of the residents in my area do not even know that this café exists.

So what is my point? When it comes to outstanding services or products most people are unaware of what is available, primarily because it does not fit into their lifestyle or what they’re accustomed to. I believe you can transfer this similarity to the business world. Manufacturing logistics and transportation people become accustomed to doing things a certain way. Over time they may become blind to ideas for improving the supply chain. They are unaware of an exceptional Supply Chain Café, even when it is located just seconds from a combination of keystrokes and Google.

It is not their fault they are missing the best latté available. We, as consultants, who prepare those delightful solutions from the Supply Chain Café menu, have probably not done the finest job of promoting our services and software to your neighborhood, but that is changing.

There are many empty cups in the supply chain, waiting to be filled with successful solutions. Supply Chain and Logistic managers tackle difficult supply chain problems every day, but they are so focused on getting their job done and making it through the day that they have little time to think of alternatives that may improve their processes and well being. I am not sure how we can help everyone, so let’s focus on the window shoppers. These are the ones that are aware of the café, but have never been inside. Maybe you are one?

If you are reading this blog, then you must be a window shopper. I am guessing you are looking for a better espresso. OK, you found “Profit Point”, although you may not know what we do. Guess what? Help is on its way. We can share our menu with you. We just published four videos that will introduce you to the Profit Point team and what we do. Embrace three minutes out of your day, select one of the videos, and watch it. Learn how we help companies improve their supply chain, by serving the best coffee with a smile.

Yes, you can improve your supply chain with our help. The supply chain solution that you are looking for, is about to be yours. And if you place an order, we can fill your cup to the top, with the “good triple certified” stuff. If you cannot seem to find that special item on our Supply Chain menu, then no fear, we love special orders.

So, is there a shortage of Supply Chain Cafés? No. You just need to find the one that serves the optimal latté. I know it’s out there somewhere.

To learn more about Profit Point’s Global Supply Chain Optimzation services, please contact us.

Frequently, you might hear somebody say that the capacity of a production facility is some known and fixed value.  When this happens be very wary of what they might be trying to sell you.  Because as with so many other things, when measuring capacity ”the devil is in the details”.

The “capacity” of a factory sounds like a pretty simple notion and something that should be easy to calculate.  But this is only true for production systems that are fairly straightforward, consisting of totally independent machines and processes.  If the organization however consists of operations that are interconnected and interdependent on each other, then capacity can be a fairly difficult thing to measure.

In the vast majority of production systems, there is a very real link between capacity and three critical factors:

1. the mix of products, and how much time is required for setup/cleanup between consecutive production runs,
2. the ability to create sophisticated and optimal schedules for the production resources,
3. how much physical space exists in the factory where products that are only partially complete can be kept or stored; what’s known as Work in Process (or WIP)  Inventory.

To see these 3 relationships at work, consider the simple case where a certain department produces two products, A and B, which both use the same piece of equipment, and there is only one of these machines available.  The production rates of the machine are in the table below and there is a 4 hour setup time required when the machine switches over from producing one product to another.  Now consider the 2 scenarios below.  In Scenario A, the capacity is 170 units per day while in scenario B the capacity is 145.

This example clearly demonstrates the frist item above, that the “capacity” of the department depends to a large extent on the mix of the 2 products that are being produced.

Now suppose that management wants to produce 110 of A and 80 of B per day.  These new requirements seem to clearly exceed the capacity of the department given EITHER Scenario A or B.  But maybe the necessary capacity can still be found.

If the new requirement is to produce at this increased rate for only a single day, or to produce at this rate each and every day, then there is definitely not enough capacity on the machine.  However, if the increased production is required over a sustained length of time, then we can gain extra production by modifying the production schedule so as to eliminate or minimize the occurrence of the 4 hour setup.  If the department schedules production in long blocks spanning several days, where first one product and then the other is produced, then the department DOES have the capacity.  In the table below for example, 440 units of A is first produced followed by 320 of B, with a 4 hour setup between them.  This represents 4 days worth of the increased management requirement (100 of A and 80 of B each multiplied by 4).

With this schedule, the total required hours of 94 is less than the 96 hours available in 4 days, and so now there IS enough capacity!  By scheduling wisely (i.e. “working smarter”), the department’s average daily capacity has actually risen to (760 / 4) = 190 units per day, a good deal higher than either 170 or 145 in the two previous scenarios.

Thus, the department capacity clearly depends on the ability to implement “smart” production schedules that make the best use of the available resources, i.e. the second issue mentioned earlier.

Finally, this higer capacity schedule is an example of a “good news / bad news” situation.  Although the plant is able to produce more (and presumably company revenues will go up) the downside of this higher capacity schedule is that  the department will be maintaining a larger amount of inventory in the supply chain on average.  And if there is more “stuff” in the pipeline, then there has to be the physical space to put it.  This is an important consideration if inventory has to be stored in or on particular types of storage facilities such as refrigerators or special racks.  Therefore, although it might be possible to ”buy” extra production capacity with a better equipment schedule,  it is important to realize that different schedules put more or less demand on the spatial capacity of the actual storage facilities.

Therefore, this example illustrates the third item, that increasing ouput can put stress on the plant’s storage facilities

This last scenario also shows that maximum capacity is not necessarily the same as minimum cost.  Because notice that in this scenario there is only one 4-hour setup, and thus any costs from the setup activity are averaged over a larger number of produced items.  But offsetting this savings in setup cost is the fact that with the increased WIP, the inventory costs will have gone up.

The fact that capacity can be such a difficult thing to measure, does not mean that it is not a valuable parameter to describe a given system.  What it does mean is that when any capacity value is given for a particular supply chain, it is absolutely critical to understand the assumptions that underlie it.  The fact that capacity is such a highly maleable concept, simply reinforces the fact that managing a company’s supply chain is always a delicate balancing act between competing costs and non-monetary factors.

This month’s issue of Supply Chain Solutions magazine features an article by Dr. Alan Kosansky and Dr. Joe Litko entitled Leverage Value.

“Executive-level business decisions include a broad range of interconnected variables leading to an extensive array of options. In the supply chain arena, this often plays out as a tradoff between operating costs, working capital, asset utilization and customer service levels.”

This article looks at the challenges faced by executives in making these decisions and the value of modeling future scenarios to make better decisions. You can read the complete article here.

If you would like to learn more about our Supply Chain Optimization and decision support services, please call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

With the timing and velocity of an economic recovery uncertain, many companies are looking for new ways to improve profits without risking growth capacity. One key opportunity for gaining competitive cost advantage is transportation spend.

So this year, we conducted a survey transportation decision makers to learn more about their concerns and expectation for 2011. Supply chain professionals from a variety of companies and industries were polled. Here’s what we learned:

• In today’s environment, cost and service still dominate all other considerations
• Despite current economic conditions, 87% of respondents are concerned about rising transportation costs
• 75% of all respondents find it challenging to balance the tradeoff between cutting costs and adding too many carriers
• One in four respondents were not able to measure the impact of their “improvement initiatives”

To read the complete report, including our conclusions, click the link below:

Download the 2011 Transportation Survey

To learn more about Profit Point’s transportation optimization and transportation procurement services, call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.