Seeing Past the Craziness

Craziness? Right? Exhausting? Yes.

I feel bombarded from all sides—constant streams of conference pictures, posts touting the latest shiny object, supply chain podcasters with radio commentary, experts pushing their versions of best practices, and list after list celebrating supply chain leaders. The noise ratio is high, and the value is low. I find keeping up with my LinkedIn feed these days draining.

Centering the Discussion through Case Studies

I try to rise above the noise. I used to be a road warrior supporting events, but I stepped back when the focus shifted to lead generation versus content. I have little energy to help an event company sell a sponsorship to enable a technology company to get a better list.

My goal is to help companies think differently and drive greater value. I don't care what technologies you use or consultants you deploy; success will remain elusive if you are not centered on value. To help the discussion, here I share my favorite case studies:

Supply Chain Segmentation. Companies do not have one supply chain; most have four to five. A common mistake is to manage all flows like they are one. My favorite case study is the Clorox case study on training the organization to manage the rhythms and cycles of product supply to align with value chain segmentation.

Managing Complexity. Less than 1% of companies manage product complexity. The long tail of the supply chain is a skewed distribution requiring sophisticated optimization that has an exponential effect on safety stock and cycle stock inventories. My favorite case studies on managing complexity are the World Kitchen case study (in the agility report) and Campbell's case study on platform rationalization. (Campbell's Soup reduced the number of carrots in its soups to streamline procurement platforms.)

Becoming Demand Driven. Leaders aggressively manage demand in a disciplined approach—measuring forecastability regularly and adapting models and optimizers to improve outcomes. Backcasting and fine-tuning optimizers, conducting after-action reviews on Forecast Value Added (FVA), and measuring bullwhip. Most companies manage demand passively reporting error and bias but not understanding the flow of the demand stream. Advanced planning technologies enable visualization of these elements, but sadly, few turn them on. A success story is BSH's work on using outside-in data to visualize and better manage the bullwhip.

Summary

If you are like me and side-stepping the hype of your LinkedIn streams, consider the insights from these case studies. I am wrapping up my winter course on outside-in processes and will teach another spring class. The homework from the class on forecastability, complexity and managing demand tells me that there is much opportunity to step beyond hype and shiny objects to rethink supply chain processes.

We are wrapping up the work on measuring value in the supply chain with Georgia Tech and will publish the new Supply Chains to Admire work next month. In the report, we will unveil the Supply Chain Fundamental Score. Stay tuned.

I am also doing a podcast series this month—interviews of supply chain leaders about what they would have told their twenty-five-year-old selves. This should be fun! My goal is to give insight to the new generation of supply chain leaders.