Off The Cuff: Food for Thought

OFF THE CUFF

Aditya Singh

Food for

Thought

If opportunity doesn't strike, build a door, so the say- ing goes. Today we talk about doors that can be built with minimum resources. To do that what we only re- quire clarity of purpose?that the door must be built. And how to build that door? Through a collation mechanism, where ideas, potentials, growth areas, and innovations are pooled in the most natural way, where intelligence is gen- erated with the collated ideas, constantly filtered and given a momentum.

Organisations should have in place a process that makes every contributor feel that every action of theirs is adding value?values that can be quantified and give a feeling of continuous reward. In fact, organisations are always bub- bling with ideas. Ideas can come from the sales force, finance, design, warehousing, sourcing, supply chain, qual- ity, shop floor worker, HR, marketing, services, IT department or for that matter, any of the outsourced de- partments or even clients. What is required is a mecha- nism to capture these ideas, and reward the creators, even though the idea might not be practical at the moment. The need is to nurture these ideas and collate them. Only then, a semblance of intelligence can be created.

A different approach is required to capture the ideas, slightly different than the conventional 'Suggestion Box'. A 'Suggestion Box' only calls for cost cutting ideas. The danger of cost cutting is that if we keep cutting corners we end up in circles. In fact, after some time, we will only re- invent the wheel. Further, ideas need not always be 'pro- ductivity ideas' - they could be thought processes that could change the entire dimension of the way we conduct busi- ness today, or ideas that generate entirely new business processes or envisage new tools to search for 'new markets or better create new markets. One doesn't really need a huge IT set up for capturing ideas. Simple mechanisms like Lotus notes or even e-mails will do. Collation can be done on Excel sheets. But the individual must be rewarded for his ideas, by linking it to his/her Key Result Areas (KRA) and to Performance Linked Incentives (PLI). I would like to conclude this column on a totally different note, on a subject dear to me?logistics. In the army there

is a saying, "The best of plans will fail if executed poorly, however an average plan will succeed if executed with the right spirit." The answer lies in execution, as a very aver- age plan approached with the right spirit evolves along with the implementation. Evolution is a natural process. Darwin's law of 'survival of the fittest' is a truth that has stood the test of time. In today's world, where invisible battle lines between products are drawn and redrawn con- tinuously, it is apparent that only those with the strongest supply chain mechanisms can survive. This observation is equally valid for the supply chains of nations as they strive for superlative pre-eminence. Therefore, management of logistics is a visible indicator of the character of a society/ nation. The same goes for a supply chain tooAs 'charac- ter' is quantified by its biggest weakness, so is the strength of the supply chain by its weakest link.

Today, there is a need for integration of key business processes. However, there are numerous sources of un- certainty and inefficiency in a business process. It could be wrong forecasts, late deliveries from suppliers, poor qual- ity, machine breakdowns, absentee-ism, unexpected holi- days (especially at customs), cancelled orders, erroneous information, price uncertainties, speculations, licensing delays, freight forwarding delays, documentation, red tape, corruption and more. At the other end, the execution of logistics involves several ?R?s viz. Right Time, Right Place, Right Person and Right Condition. These are applicable more to information than the physical movement of goods ie. if the information supply chain is crystal clear, goods follow through. Therefore, the principal objective of SCM should be to minimise delay of information and goods in the chain so as to optimise the velocity of all operations. Efforts driven by this vision result in positive developments that enhance productivity and motivation.

Aditya Singh is GM-Logistics, Seco Tools India. An ex-Army officer ( alumni National Defense Academy (NDA), Brigade of the Guards and a Gold Medalist from the Indian Military Academy (IMA)), he has 15 years of extensive exposure to SCM in four different Industries viz. Army, Construction, Logistics, and Manufacturing. He may be contacted at [email protected]

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