supplychain Archives - Supply Chain Game Changer™

An Acquisition Gone Wrong! A Coup D’Etat in the Boardroom!

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Cost Cutting! Brute Force or An Intelligent Program?

The CEO called an emergency meeting in the Boardroom. The President of our Division, myself, the prior owners of a company we had just acquired, and one of our major shareholders/board members were to attend. The sh*t had hit the fan with our latest acquisition.

It had only been a few months since the acquisition had been completed. This was certainly long enough for the honeymoon period to be over. But now it looked like we were quickly heading for a divorce.

What went wrong?

Blockchain Continues to Make its Way into the Supply Chain World!

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The 5 Levels of Supply Chain Transparency!

Blockchain continues article provided by http://argentus.com. Argentus is a boutique recruitment firm focused on Supply Chain and Procurement.

A few months back, we wrote about Blockchain as an emerging technology and tool for Supply Chain transparency.

It’s a pretty incredible technology that stands to reshape big aspects of the economy in general and Supply Chain in particular – but it’s also pretty difficult for the common person to understand, which doesn’t help matters.

But Blockchain is coming, and it offers the potential to shake up Supply Chain and Logistics like few other technologies coming down the pike.

Supply Chain Innovation: The Path to Success!

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Pain Points – An Opportunity to Innovate and Expand!

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Supply Chain innovation article posted on kencogroup.com by Kristi Montgomery. Permission to publish here provided by Greg Boring at Kenco Group.

Innovation is a team effort requiring collaboration and buy-in from all levels within an organization, and it’s especially true when it comes to bringing innovation to the supply chain.

While new and buzzworthy technologies like drones and robotics are consistently being introduced, innovation for the supply chain is truly a continuum of small improvements that make a greater impact – whether it’s improving processes or the overarching business model.

Value Stream Mapping the Future State Process!

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We had completed value stream mapping the current state processes across some very significant business processes in the company. It took a fair amount of time even though we had the active involvement of subject matter experts and leaders from every functional organization.

When all was said and done the current state involved hundreds of process steps, almost 200 pain points, and dozens of iterative, repetitive loops. The company was just being introduced to Lean process improvement techniques. And as challenging as it was to reach a common understanding of what the current processes were the difficult part was about to start.

How were we going to define and map the Future State process?

Characteristics of a Barrier Busting Culture!

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Ground Rules for Creating a High Performance Organization (HPO)!

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When you embark on driving any kind of Game Changing Transformation you will most likely also need to change the Culture. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”. So in order to get different results you may have to break through barriers and drive different behaviours from what are inherent in your current Culture.

Your organization is an ecosystem of policies, practices, processes and procedures that are the result of decisions, beliefs and behaviours. Over time much of this generally gets accepted as the way it’s always been done and is not open to challenge or to change. Therein sacred cows, whether real or perceived, can become obstacles to making the changes needed to derive different results from the status quo.

So how do you change your Culture to achieve Game Changing results?

The Control Tower – Is Yours Real or Smoke and Mirrors?

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10 Supply Chain Investment Challenges – Real and Imagined!

The advancement of digital technology enables the real-time, intelligent management of the Supply Chain. This now means you need a Control Tower.

But any company’s Supply Chain can still involve tens of thousands of skus, thousands of bills of material, thousands of suppliers, hundreds of transportation vendors, dozens of manufacturing facilities and distribution centres, and numerous customers.

So even if you have a Digital Supply Chain how do you manage this complexity? The answer is that you need a Control Tower!

6 Trends to Make Supply Chain Managers the Heroes of Their Company!

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Supply Chain heroes article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Adam Robinson on https://cerasis.com

Supply chain leaders and heroes will face the year with uncertainty and opportunity. Digital technologies are becoming more prevalent in basic supply chain functions, and changes in legislation are likely to spur dramatic changes that will result in the need to reevaluate supply chain strategy in both domestic and international locations. How can they be heroes?

Similar to the supply chain maturity curve of technologies, as explained by Steve Banker of Forbes, supply chain managers should consider how top supply chain trends will influence operations in the coming year.

The Amazing Supply Chain of Your Morning Coffee!

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Peeling Back The Orange Juice Supply Chain! (Video)

Coffee article written by Julia Severins and originally published on http://allthingssupplychain.com . Permission to publish provided by David Weaver.

Even though modern coffee machines offer an attractive variety of caffeinated drinks like cappuccino or latte macchiato, for me it is a simple cup of black coffee that helps kick-start my productivity when the clock strikes 8 am.

This “kick-start”, or boost aspect of coffee was randomly discovered between the sixth and the ninth century. A widespread tale sets the scene in the kingdom of Kaffa, in Abyssinia – which today is Ethiopia – where a shepherd one day observed that his sheep were unusually cheerful after eating white blossoms and red cherries from a previously unknown plant. Further, it is said that the shepherd told monks from the nearby monastery about his new discovery, but they tagged the beans as “Devil´s work” and hurled them into a fire. The delicious smell that rose from the pit of the fire brought on the idea of roasting the beans.

Breaking your Supply Chain Traffic Jam!

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Do you have a Freight Management Strategy or are you Spinning your Wheels?

Does anyone like being stuck in a Traffic Jam?

Prior to one Holiday season several years ago the volume that was coming into the Distribution Centre receiving area was unprecedented and unpredicted. We were out of room on the docks and we were out of storage space but trucks kept on coming. And we were still weeks away from being able to ship product to stores to relieve the pressure.

We were gridlocked. We kept inching our way along but we were very, very close to having this traffic jam of activity shut us down.

The Supply Chain Carbon Footprint Reduction Strategy! (Infographic)

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The Green Supply Chain: True Sustainability or Just a Marketing Stunt?

When I was 11 years old everyone in Grade 6 was required to create and make a speech in front of the class. I wrote a speech on Air Pollution. It was an emerging issue in the news at that time. I talked about statistics on the levels of Air Pollution, the damage it was causing, and what we needed to do to curtail and fix the problem. This was long before I had heard the words Supply Chain Carbon Footprint.

I ended up winning the local and regional public speaking competitions with that speech. I didn’t actually end up doing much about Air Pollution beyond helping to promote awareness of the issue with my speech. But it did plant the idea in my mind that we all had a responsibility to create awareness and help protect our environment in whatever manner that we could.

Blockchain in the Supply Chain is a Game Changer!

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Blockchain in the Supply Chain article originally published on https://cerasis.com. Permission to publish here provided by Adam Robinson.

The application of blockchain in the supply chain is among the greatest innovations to take root in the shipping industry.

The application of blockchain holds promises to increase visibility, renew viability, reduce inconsistency, increase payment processing accuracy, and eliminate compliance problems.

Even though the technology is still new, its potential cannot be ignored, and supply chain executives need to know why.

Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with David Cefai, CIO at IMax!

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At Supply Chain Game Changer we believe in sharing experiences and expertise from people in every industry and from across the globe. As such we have introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action” Interview series at Supply Chain Game Changer. This interview is with David Cefai, CIO at IMax.

The Future of E-Commerce! (Infographic)

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Future of E-Commerce article created for Supply Chain Game Changer by Josh Wardini. Infographic originally published by Subscriptionly at https://subscriptionly.net

Thanks to digital technology we can carry out commercial transactions online. We can buy and sell items or services, pay bills, make orders, and so much more.

Online enterprises are heavily relying on this commodity. This is why we have numerous online businesses nowadays.

The infographic below from Subscriptionly will inform you about the current and future tech trends that will influence the ecommerce sector. Some of the main trends are as follows.

6 Technologies that will Change Transportation and Trucking Forever!

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What’s The Difference Between Logistics and Supply Chain Management?

Transportation and Trucking article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Adam Robinson on https://cerasis.com

Modern transportation is currently experiencing major changes thanks to transformative transportation technologies. Although we’ve become accustomed to long international flights, jam-packed public transportation and diesel trucks that only get 20 mpg, the future of transportation promises to change all of that and much more — and it’s closer than many people realize.

Let’s take a look at 6 transportation technologies sure to impact the trucking and transportation industries forever.

Creating the Culture to Break Barriers!

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Digital Transformation of SCM and Change Management!

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In my experience when you embark on driving any kind of Game Changing Transformation you will most likely also need to break barriers and change behaviours if not the Culture. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”. So in order to get different results you may have to break through barriers and drive different behaviours from what are inherent in the current Culture.

Having your Call to Action in Place, A Project Name and mandate, and a Holistic Approach are critical. But the “X” factor that you also need to have a strategy for is Cultural Change.