Managing S&OP A recent blogpost by Lora Cecere at Supply Chain Insights, identified reasons for companies failing to gain benefits from Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). The main challenge is a lack of leadership to manage change in organisational culture. that recognises, plans and measures the business in an environment of flows within a complex, non-linear system. However, it is difficult for … Read More
Collaboration for planning supply chain operations
Planning for disruptions Your successful enterprise cannot be ‘demand driven’ if it is not ‘supply supported’. Although your business is built on serving customers, they cannot click their finger (or keyboard) and everything just happens to satisfy the demand. A few years ago, an approach was promoted as ‘demand driven supply chains’. This implied that the supply chains group (Procurement, … Read More
The ‘One Plan’ process provides effective Supply Chains
One Plan for your Supply Chains The previous blogpost discussed how uncertainty and disruptions in supply chains are likely to be experienced for the foreseeable future. Reacting to events by ‘putting out fires’ looks good as a ‘can do’ attitude to impress others, but is an ineffective and expensive way to operate. As an alternative, your business can build a … Read More
Planning Supply Chains when Uncertainty is expected
Actions in response to COVID19 In general, people, including those within businesses, take little notice of future events that are rare, even though the consequences may be catastrophic. With COVID19, governments were warned for decades about the threat of viruses (SARS, MERS etc.), but were unprepared when the disease appeared. People also quickly forget about the community effects of past … Read More
Questions to consider about Supply Chains in 2022
Questions for a government This first blogpost for 2022 will note some changes that could occur, but over a longer horizon, than one year. These are not ‘trends’, but matters for consideration concerning how, if they gain momentum, they may affect your supply chains. For 2022, national governments have limited strategy options. Over the past two years it has become … Read More