MTO and ATO Providing Availability of products for customers is governed by the management of inventory, capacity and lead times. Of the three, operational capacity within a business is the resource least influenced by external events and decisions. As discussed in the previous blogpost, Make to Order (MTO) includes production operations that transform materials, and Assemble to Order (ATO) is … Read More
Operations that can respond to changes in Supply Chains
Operations model The current geopolitical actions add more Uncertainty in a business, which is the driver of risk, so enterprises could be reviewing their business model. The Supply Chains group, or its functions of Procurement, Operations Planning and Logistics will provide input to the decision process. This input should provide options concerning the positioning of Operations from the perspective of … Read More
Bad data through supply chains provides poor outcomes
Bad data example There continues to be a deluge of articles, videos and conferences extoling the benefits of Artificial Intelligence. But there is less emphasis on what businesses must do internally to implement the technologies. One of the major requirements is to use clean data, otherwise it is ‘garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) for IT systems. The lack of clean … Read More
US import tariffs and change in global supply chains
US tariffs background The US has announced increased import tariffs by country. This has been followed by much commentary about the likely effects on world trade. However, little has been said or written that provides a background to the announcement. This blogpost summarises background information taken from the newsletter Thoughts from the Frontline, by the conservative American financial analyst John … Read More
Skills for professionals in the Supply Chains group
Select your skills As a supply chain professional, it is unlikely that you will possess all the skills required to cover all jobs in the Supply Chains group. However, it is a sign of a good professional to know which skills are required and to help build the team around those requirements, which includes for all to upgrade knowledge and … Read More