Compensation article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Argentus at http://www.argentus.com .
This week saw one of the year’s most highly-anticipated releases in the Supply Chain industry: the Institute of Supply Management (ISM)’s annual salary survey.
As a recruitment company specializing in the industry, we consider it part of our mandate to spread the word about salaries in the field – and educate ourselves even further in the process.
Over the course of a long career I have worked with and for many, many people. As I reflect on the bosses I have had it is easy to create a list of those I considered to be good bosses and those I considered to be bad bosses.
But I have also always felt that you can, and should, learn from everyone. Whether you consider that they are good, bad or indifferent there are behaviours and qualities that you can see in every person.
Everyone can share similar stories, again both good and bad. It’s how you react, adapt, adopt, avoid, change, and deal with these behaviours that is important.
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 Neil Hampshire.
When I joined ModusLink I needed to hire a new CIO. I didn’t want a CIO to just run the I/T backroom making sure that all of the systems and computers were up and running. I wanted a CIO that was going to be a Game Changer!
Businesses have long since entered the E-Commerce marketplace. But how do you physically fulfill all of those online orders?
The age of technology and innovation has made E-Commerce order fulfillment business processes and solutions so readily available that it has become highly competitive. This competition is especially apparent in the area of E-Commerce Third-Party Logistics (3PLs).
Aggregating your procurement spend for the purpose of delivering greater value is a sound objective. Theoretically you should be able to generate better service, better terms and conditions, and better cost. Therefore you should enable spend aggregation.
Yet there can be many obstacles in your way to achieving this seemingly simple goal. Loss of control, fear of job loss, questionable benefits, and a perceived loss of margin are some of the obstacles you may run across. We discussed these in greater detail in our post Procurement (Part 1!) – The Spend Aggregation Obstacle Course!
You may be trying to aggregate spend within your company or across companies, or you are trying to outsource this to a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO). To overcome the Spend Aggregation obstacles there are a series of enablers you need to enact to make this successful.
Optimize your Factory article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Adam Robinson at https://cerasis.com.
Believe it or not, Industry 4.0 — the latest specialization for modern factories and manufacturing plants — does factor into design and factory layout. That is because digitization, or the current movement to connect and bring all equipment into modern times, absolutely influences design.
In essence, that is the heart of Industry 4.0, a complete synergy between operations, equipment, properties and, of course, the people who spend their time there. If 3.0 was about automation and boosting efficiency, this generation is about injecting the human touch back into the work environment, and that means accommodating such things from a design standpoint.
A High Performance Organization is one in which there is tremendous alignment among and commitment by the team members. And as a result this motivated team is able to achieve superior results. The level of collaboration and innovation they demonstrate is remarkable. But what are the ground rules?
There are many characteristics of the culture which allows such teams to be high performing. And when they set out to drive change and make improvements it is those cultural characteristics which allow them to succeed.
How can you tell if your Supply Chain is broken? Do you need a Supply Chain Detective?
Certainly there can be obvious clues: your CEO starts firing and hiring people, consultants are brought in, customers start leaving, or operating and financial performance suffers.
But before the situation gets to those extremes what are the clues that your Supply Chain is not working as well as it could, or should?
Supply Chain effectiveness is absolutely critical for companies in most industries to survive, let alone succeed. And even if your company seems successful now that is no guarantee that it will be in the future.
So detecting those clues and solving these problems is of paramount importance.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) article originally published at https://www.tenfold.com . Permission to publish provided by Abigail Rabi.
From The Terminator to Blade Runner, pop culture has always leaned towards a chilling depiction of artificial intelligence (AI) and our future with AI at the helm. Recent headlines about Facebook panicking because their AI bots developed a language of their own have us hitting the alarm button once again. Should we really feel unsettled with an AI future?
News flash: that future is here. If you ask Siri, the helpful assistant who magically lives inside your phone, to read text messages and emails to you, find the nearest pizza place or call your mother for you, then you’ve made AI a part of your everyday life. Even current weather forecasting systems, spam filtering programs, and Google’s search engine – among so many other practical applications – are AI-powered. Now, artificial intelligence doesn’t seem that alarming, right?
Predictions article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Kuebix at https://www.kuebix.com
In the book, The Living Supply Chain, the authors argue that, “Speeding up the supply chain is at the root of everything that is good: improved revenue, reduced working capital, higher profitability, and less obsolete inventory. Conversely, slowing down the supply chain is at the root of everything that is bad: working capital write-offs, reduced profitability, and slowing revenues.”
To “speed” up the supply chain is to invest in change and change will come with the digital transformation of the supply chain, which is the major focus for executives in the future.
Much change in the supply chain industry will be due to innovative technologies for digital transformations, along with the recent tax reforms, and the still-current driver shortage/capacity crunch. Digital transformation of the supply chain will change everything – for the better.
These are the innovative technology predictions companies must use to undergo this transformation within their supply chains:
Cloud-based technology deployments lower cost of ownership due to not having a large capital expenditure on hardware and upgrades. Cloud-based solutions are ideal for any size business because they can be scaled up as your business grows and are easier to set-up and manage.
Advanced Analytics will support real-time decision making based on data captured across the supply chain. With analytics, businesses can more effectively predict and fill demand. You can also manage relationships with carriers, suppliers and customers while improving processes. Using advanced analytics in a transportation management network to look at historical traffic patterns, you can plan a truck’s route that takes into account time delays for more accurate arrival times.
Tracking and Tracing of raw materials through manufacturing to the end customer must take on Amazon-like capabilities, meaning customers will know where their orders are at any one time, just like when you order from Amazon. With track & trace, you will get deep visibility to SKU-level information from first-mile to last-mile, including the tracking of costs to better monitor transport spend. Communications with customers will be proactive instead of reactive, alerting customers if their order will be late or when it will arrive.
Supply Chain Visibility will make data collected from end-to-end across the supply chain available to all stakeholders, giving them greater control and visibility into what is happening across the enterprise. You can uncover roadblocks within your supply chain that could lead to delays in shipping.
Blockchain will provide interconnectivity between ledgers of supply chain trading partners, enhancing traceability of transaction history. Automating the flow of information among trading partners provides transparency and boosts efficiencies. Blockchain works with cryptocurrency to determine payment amounts, allowing drivers to be paid as they complete parts of their journey. This completely removes the transport broker from the equation, giving drivers access to quicker settlement. However, blockchain is still a technology that needs further development before it can be proved useful to some businesses.
Artificial Intelligence initiatives require specialists who are hard to find, potentially stalling any projects. AI utilizes algorithms to detect patterns in vast volumes of data and interpret their meaning such as predicting whether a carrier will be on-time based on weather conditions and past performance.
Predictive Analytics, often combined with Artificial Intelligence, helps shippers understand, automate and optimize their supply chain processes to gain better efficiencies. Predictive analytics provides shippers with actionable intelligence and predictions to guide the decision-making process, helping you to reduce costs and optimize operations. Scorecards on carrier performance can alert shippers on which carriers can better meet their service obligations.
The Internet of Things (IoT)– More devices, from pallets to trucks will have sensors embedded to transmit status and performance data. This real-time information will be used for monitoring everything from equipment health to asset locations to order tracking and more. Advanced analytical systems use the data to uncover trends that lead to predictions and performance improvements and cost reductions.
Originally published on Supply Chain Game Changer on March 14, 2018.
How many screens do you have? And is your screen time?
You likely have a Cell phone or a Smart phone. You may have a Desktop computer monitor or a Laptop, or both, between your home and your place of work. You may have a wearable device like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch. You may have an iPad or other type of tablet. And your TV may even have Internet connectivity.
We are surrounded by screens and the amount of time that we spend on them is truly remarkable.
But for those who are learning about Supply Chain, or any other profession for that matter, is it best to acquire that learning and gain that experience just by watching screens? Or is it better in Supply Chain to learn based on actual physical experiences and interactions?
Supply Chain transparency article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Sam Jenks at http://www.kodiakrating.com
As the story goes, the meatpacking districts of Chicago were one of the first recorded drivers, towards the need, for supply chain transparency. The Jungle, authored by Upton Sinclair, outraged the American public in 1904, after Sinclair’s depiction of the harsh realities of the meat industry at the turn of the 20th century. The book sparked consumer concern, which prompted the Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act (Linich 2016).
One could even argue transparency — at it’s origin — is a byproduct of consumer concerns, materialized within poor production, social and/or environmental quality.
Differentiate with a Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) article originally published by, and permission to publish here provided by, Michael Massetti, Executive Partner at Gartner.
Democratic institutions around the world promote the core doctrine that all people are created equally. This is clearly not the case in the world of supplier management. All suppliers are not created equally and they should all be managed with this distinction in mind.
This article on how to differentiate with Supplier Relationship Management will look at a model for stratifying and segmenting your supply base within the confines of a structured and formal supplier relationship program (SRP).
No matter what industry you are in and no matter what channels you are serving your Customers expect delivery of their goods on time.
You may have different pressures, to increase profits for instance, but you must take care of the basic expectation of on time delivery first.
If you don’t have on time delivery all your other pressures will not matter. Your customers will go elsewhere and your business will fail. Even if you have a unique product that no one else in the world has (for now) you must deliver on time to your customers. If not there will always come a time when your customers will be able to go elsewhere.
Providing on time delivery may seem basic. But it is the foundation on which the rest of your business must be built.
Having come from a company wherein we were selling Freight management services I was curious about Freight spend at this new company. But I could find no one answer to my question.
“How much were we spending on Freight?”
The fact that no one knew the answer raised the first alarm bell. The answers that I got raised a whole slew of other alarm bells.
This was going to be an area that was full of opportunity!
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