From Supply Network Design Map to Platforms The less complicated it is to plan your supply chains, the more likely there will be believable plans and achievable outcomes. But the scope of international trade and the reach of organisations into countries for sales and supply means that complexity in planning is not only present, but can easily increase. In the … Read More
Making the connections in supply chains more effective
Improving flows through supply chains The goal for professionals is to make Supply Chains more effective. However, the more typical focus for many years has been on making the functional silos within supply chains more efficient. That is improving the transactional processes within their silos. The silo approach emphasises the implementation of three-letter acronym applications such as CRM, SRM, APS, … Read More
How digital should be your supply chain skills?
Skilled or knowledgeable The previous blogpost discussed the appropriate opportunity to invest in ‘new’ technologies for supply chains. But what skills are needed to buy, implement and use the technologies? A recent paper titled 21st Century Procurement Skills strongly emphases digital skills, but is this the correct approach? The author identifies the core skill required as “Solid, explicit digital knowledge…”. … Read More
Investment in new technologies for your Supply Chains
New technologies list Articles, conferences, workshops and subjects in degree programmes continue to promote investment in technologies that are considered ‘new’. But when are these technologies right for your organisation to implement? Technologies currently considered as ‘new’ (enhanced from the Deloitte consulting list) are: Software Analytics: Predictive (using ‘big data’ within and between connected devices to enable decisions) and Prescriptive … Read More
Supply chain professionals view changing supply chains
Geopolitics is the new word The nature of international trade is that we often do not know where components of an item are made. It can mean that the most recent invoice containing increased prices, sent from a US based supplier to a US based customer, is the first signal that components in the purchased item are made in China … Read More