There’s another unfortunate entry in the annals of Supply Chain failures that burst into the wider world of business and pop culture: More than half of the UK’s Kentucky Fried Chicken stores recently closed because KFC ran out of chicken!
We’ve written on the Argentus’ blog many times about Supply Chain misadventures, and how they can harm a brand’s reputation as well as profits – for example, maybe most memorably, in the case of Target, which had to retreat from the Canadian market after Supply Chain snafus led to empty shelves and disappointed customers.
The logistics industry is worth over $8.1 trillion. Not only it is an incomprehensibly big market, there are countless factors shaping it.
Globalization introduced a new level of complexity. International shipping has become a norm and customer expectations are higher than ever: we want our shipments on time, delivered as soon as possible and for this complex service we are willing to pay less and less.
In order to meet these high expectations and keep their customers satisfied, logistics service providers have to reach a never-before-seen level of efficiency.
Logistics is only seldom mentioned when we talk about innovation: industries like IT, telecommunications and automotive are the ones that first come to mind. Yet logistics, which represents an enormous opportunity given its size and its potential growth, has undergone a major transformation as well and the process is not close to an end.
The following infographic shows us how two multi-billion dollar companies, Uber and Amazon are revolutionizing the industry. Will a taxi app and an online retailer be the ones setting the new standards?
Amazon and Uber are the two giants in the industry. And the E-Commerce marketplace requires companies to provide a fast, free (or inexpensive to the customer), and reliable last mile delivery solution. This tremendous article provides a great characterization of Amazon and Uber in the Last Mile marketplace.
Amazon and Uber article and permission to publish here provided by Sam White at Argentus. Created by trademachines.com. Originally published on Supply Chain Game Changer on December 6, 2017.
With the increase in the popularity of e-shops and delivery companies, the e-commerce logistics business keeps growing. It faces more and more challenges, as customers need companies to be quick and increase their logistics performance more than ever before.
What does it mean for your business? This article explains why understanding and following the key trends in logistics e-commerce are crucial for organizations that want to save their place in the supply chain and get better results with less effort.
We’re going to take a look at cloud computing and how it integrates all supply chain technologies. Cloud computing has been around for a while but growing in popularity and integration.
All data will eventually reside in the cloud. Let’s be sure we understand what the cloud is. The cloud refers to software and services that run on the Internet, instead of locally on your computer.
While immensely popular in the United States, self-storage solutions have remained pretty uncommon throughout Europe… that is, until now.
More and more entrepreneurs are recognising the untapped opportunity presented by the storage industry and as a result we are seeing a major increase in the availability of facilities in Europe.
Virtual reality (VR) is something we’ve been hearing a lot about recently, but did you know your shopping experience could be influenced by this in the not too distant future? Or perhaps it already has?
Implementing a Lean program on the Manufacturing floor, in a Warehouse operation, or in a Distribution Centre is challenging enough. There are a series of process steps in which materials are transformed or moved in some fashion. Try implementing Lean in the Back Office.
And your Lean program has at its core the objective of making these operations as efficient as possible. But when you try to apply these same Lean principles to the support organizations, or the back office, you are likely to experience a wide range of reactions.
So why is it so difficult to implement, and sustain, a Lean program in the Back Office of your organization?
With these ever-increasing order volumes and changes in online shopper expectations there is enormous pressure on E-Commerce company Supply Chain distribution and fulfillment operations.
What are the keys for E-Commerce companies to be successful in fulfilling all of these orders and demands from online consumers?
In today’s eCommerce landscape, the majority of customers interact with you only two times, once when they make a purchase on your website and then again when the product is delivered. Improving your website’s conversion rate is very important and gains a lot of attention in the eCommerce industry, while the anatomy of the unboxing experience is too often overlooked.
As the marketplace for physical products continues to transition online, the customer experiences far less interaction with the actual company. These lost opportunities for a business to impress through exemplary service will need to be compensated for in other ways.
Taking a holistic approach in order to achieve Inventory TurnoverBreakthrough results meant that I needed to consider the End To End Supply Chain. As I thought through this approach there was really no other way if we were to achieve significant improvements to help the entire business in a short period of time.
In thinking about the End To End Supply Chain it was necessary to define all of the aspects that impact Inventory levels. In short I needed to be able to manage:
All of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory is brought in to the company
All of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory moves through the company
And all of the levers that control the rate at which Inventory moves out of the company
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.
Supply Chain 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.
A few months back, we wrote about how Blockchain continues 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.
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.
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?
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