Inventory Management term A question for supply chains professionals is “How much finished goods inventory should be held”? But should the answer be provided as a financial value or as physical quantities? And is the answer readily available? As with other aspects of supply chains, a discussion of inventory must commence with an assurance that definitions agreed at the organisation ... Read More ..read more

Business Analytics and AI And still the seminars and articles extolling the promise of AI continue to tempt the unwary. It appears that all problems known to mankind can be solved with AI – or is it the ‘snake oil’ salesman at work to enhance the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO)? An example is surveys that indicate a high percentage ... Read More ..read more

Topics to consider Commentators have noticed the push by senior management for employees to ‘return to the office’. Another topic of interest has been that of collaboration through supply chains to improve resilience of businesses. And a third area for articles is that recent events and disruptions in supply chains has the potential for global consumer and supply markets to ... Read More ..read more

Trade Lanes and Supply Chains Trade Lanes can change for a variety of both short and long term factors. But that does automatically equate to a situation that will affect or influence your organisation’s supply chains. Trade Lanes provide information on the direction of a trade, typically across international borders between ports, countries, or regions. Trade Lanes are linked with ... Read More ..read more

Recurrent challenges in supply chains In media articles written for industry and professionals, there is a stream of ‘good news’ stories about technologies and the positive outcomes from implementation. However, media articles written for financial and investment people have different stories. Three recent articles have highlighted some basic and recurring challenges that affect supply chains: These situations are not specific ... Read More ..read more

Protecting Nature As climate reporting by companies becomes a mandatory requirement for doing business in developed economies, a similar development is likely for the protection of Nature. And Procurement will have a lead role in compliance for their organisation. The change in thinking required by Procurement to protect Nature is that growth in a business must be decoupled from the ... Read More ..read more

Why is a Map needed? The network of suppliers and customers for your organisation will not become ‘integrated’, because each is an independent organisations with their own business objectives and policies. The need is therefore to build a ‘body of knowledge’ about customers, suppliers and the supply markets on which your organisation relies. An assumption can be that by acquiring ... Read More ..read more

Supply Chain elements The global trading situation contains multiple risks, so not understanding your organisation’s core and extended supply chains is a risk to the business. To gain this understanding requires an analysis of the main elements within an organisation’s supply chains. These are: customers, finished goods inventory, suppliers and inbound supply items. For inbound supply items, an increased emphasis ... Read More ..read more

Uncertainty and Risk Segmentation of activities within your organisation’s supply chains is an early step to reduce the complexity of an organisation’s supply chains. Segmenting customers on the basis of ‘cost to serve’ was discussed in a previous blogpost. Here, the discussion is concerned with segmenting suppliers. But where many still regard buy price and total spend as the main ... Read More ..read more

A different structure When will the next major disruption to your organisation’s supply chains occur? And what will be the cause – climate, conflict, pandemic, financial? For each of these questions there is not an answer, although many predictions. But if supply chain professionals wait until a disruption occurs before responding, then it may be too late for the business. ... Read More ..read more