Vuja De

Lean down, for what we are about to tell you is a little secret that only some know, but once you do, you’ll feel like you’ve got nuclear vision.

Real change usually requires vuja de.

You’re all probably familiar with the concept of déjà vu – looking or being in an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before.

Vuja de is the opposite. Looking at a familiar situation (like your industry or discipline – supply chain planning, say) as if you’ve never seen it before, and, with a fresh perspective, sometimes leading to a breakthrough.

Ok, sounds great, but how?

Ironically, by looking away from the problem you’re trying to solve instead of directly at it. If you study significant breakthroughs in most disciplines (even supply chain management) the breakthroughs often come from someone who brings a fresh perspective from another industry to the party.

Consider the Ormond Street Hospital in Oxford, England. They set out on a mission to improve patient handling processes by improving turnaround time and reducing the number of errors. Instead of benchmarking the “best hospitals”, they instead drew their inspiration from an organization for which speed and accuracy spelled the difference between success and failure - a Ferrari pit crew.

Now consider Commerce Bank in America, renowned for introducing several alarmingly simple and customer focused products and services. Did they study other banks? Hardly. Their view of other banks is nicely summarized by their manifesto on their banking competitors, aptly titled, “Competitor Rules And Practices” – or CRAP for short. No, their breakthroughs came from studying the great retailers.

What about supply chain planning? Can vuja de work there too?

Henry Ford invented the modern assembly line by observing the operation in a meat processing plant (or, in cruder terms, a “disassembly line”). General Mills reduced production changeover time in their factories by over 90% after studying NASCAR pit crews.

Consider the problem of forecasting and planning slow selling items at store level, using a process like Flowcasting. Ask several seasoned “experts” and you’ll experience some extreme dogma. Here are some of our favorite broken record classics, in no order:

“It’s not possible to forecast an intermittent demand stream.”

“If it’s that slow moving, it’s not worth forecasting anyway.”

“You need to do your forecasting in aggregate, then push it down to the stores in proportion.”

“Just use a min/max calculation for the stores and focus your energy forecasting at the DCs.”

Despite the gaping logical flaws in each of these arguments, some folks seem to believe that saying them repeatedly will somehow make them the best approach.

But a breakthrough has emerged by someone using the vuja de concept. In conversation with some experienced store operators, the topic of slow-moving items was discussed. “We can’t tell you whether we’ll sell any this week or next, but we can give you a total number for the quarter that’s pretty darn accurate. It’s just not possible to be precise on the timing”.

Wait a minute. Isn’t this a similar problem to one faced by specialty manufacturers who build large, expensive, low volume products? By extending the forecast period for slow sellers and applying similar thinking as manufacturing a completely new approach has emerged to forecasting and planning slow sellers at store level. A significant breakthrough since, at store level, most retailers have a large number of slow selling items.

When a problem is tough to solve, don't face it head on. The “experts” have probably already done that and the fact that the problem still exists is a testament to the fact that “expert thinking” doesn’t always lead to breakthroughs.

Approach it from the side, behind, above, below or from a 17-degree angle. Try learning about supply chain (or personal finance, or basket weaving) by learning about anything BUT.

Hopefully you haven’t heard all this before.