Tag: supplychainmanagement

supplychainmanagement is the tag associated with all things Supply Chain Management, or SCM, with involves every company in every industry.

On Time Delivery – Get that right First!

What Gets Measured Is What Gets Done!

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.

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Worst Forklift Accident Ever and Forklift Safety! (Video)

A Comprehensive Warehouse Safety Guide!

The first job I had at the beginning of my career was in the Materials Handling and Engineering department.  As a part of my job I was responsible for Forklift and Material Handling equipment planning.

To help me understand this area better I took the Forklift driver training course just like anyone else would have to do.  I was able to drive the truck and load and unload pallets from trucks and into and out of warehouse storage locations.

While I wouldn’t trust myself to drive a forklift these many years later I was reminded of the importance of forklift driver training and safety this week when I saw a short video of an absolutely horrendous forklift accident.

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Sales Forecasting Unchecked – A Supply Chain Nightmare!

Imagining the Supply Chain of the Future!

Great Sales people have wonderful characteristics and personality traits. They can light up a room, command your attention, bring big ideas to the table, and close deals with customers, all with unbridled enthusiasm. And this can be reflected in Sales forecasting.

Bringing these ideas to life and delivering on commitments made to customers most often requires different but just as impressive skills and effort from the Supply Chain and Operations teams within an organization.

But what happens if your Sales team is left unchecked, goes rogue and makes commitments that can’t be met at any cost?

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Brand Protection – The Definitive Role of the Supply Chain!

Is Your Supply Chain A Cost Centre or a Value Creator?

In this age of social media it is amazing how powerful that “likes” and “dislikes” and comments are to any single Brand.  Marketing departments generally know this all too well and they spend a lot of time and money in promoting, protecting and preserving their Brands.

But the responsibility of managing and protecting your Brand lies not only with Marketing.  The Supply Chain has an absolutely central, and pivotal, role that impacts the Brand as much as any other function in your company.

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Supply Chain as a Service (SCaaS)!

Preparing Business for the Digital Supply Chain! Oracle Interviews Mike Mortson!

I began my career working in a manufacturing plant within an international company that was completely vertically integrated. From component manufacturing through to subassembly manufacturing and end product assembly they did it all.

Within 10 years the company experienced a number of site closures and declared that manufacturing was no longer a core competency. For the site that I was a part of this meant that closure was an inevitability.

Faced with this stark reality we made the choice to spin off from the parent organization and start our own new company, entering the world of Contract Manufacturing.

This was my first experience with Outsourcing, or what I refer to as “Supply Chain as a Service” (SCaaS).

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Seasoned Leadership in Action ™ – Our 2018 All Star Leaders!

In 2018 Supply Chain Game Changer introduced our Seasoned Leadership in Action ™ interview series.

There are so many fantastic people leading in Business and in Supply Chain.  We thought that it would be great to learn a little more about what makes these people tick, what is important to them, and what we can all learn from them.

The Interview series has proven to be phenomenally popular with our readers with many of these Interviews being amongst our most viewed articles of all time.  So we thought that it would be great to recap all of the Interviews we published in 2018.

Finally we extend our thanks to all of those who participated in our Seasoned Leadership in Action™ Interview series.  You were quite simply great for which we are truly grateful!

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What Exactly Is Procurement? And What is Purchasing?

Featuring Our 12 Best Procurement Articles!

For his entire career my Father worked in the field of Procurement.  But the job titles that he had during his career alternatively included either the word Procurement or the word Purchasing.  I seem to recall that one of his business cards included both words.

When I was young I thought I had a somewhat clearer understanding of what my Dad’s Purchasing job was.  His job involved buying, negotiating, contracts, overseas travel, sourcing, suppliers, parts, services, managing, supplier qualification, product qualification, terms and conditions, quality issues and delivery problems.

But was that Procurement or was it Purchasing?  Procurement sounded like a somewhat loftier and more sophisticated word than Purchasing but by the same token it also seemed like they were synonymous and interchangeable terms.

What exactly is Procurement?  And what is Purchasing?

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How to Synchronize Your Supply Chain!

Supply Chain Visibility Has Never Been More Important!

What comes to mind when you hear the word “synchronize?”

Do you think of a watch, with all its gears turning underneath the surface? Music? Your favorite sports team?

Do you think of your business’s supply chain?

If not, that might be a problem for you.

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What’s the Difference Between Logistics and Distribution?

What’s the Difference Between Fulfillment and Replenishment?

What is the difference between Logistics and Distribution?

On the surface some people may consider them synonymous.  Without consulting a dictionary both Logistics and Distribution suggest imagery involving the movement of  goods.

But to anyone who works in Supply Chain, in particular with a title including either the term Logistics or Distribution, or if you work in a Distribution Centre or for a Logistics company, then there are distinct differences between these words.

But are there also commonalities?

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The Supply Chain Detective™ and The Case of the Missing Cash!

The Preeminent Role of Supply Chain in Cash Cycle Management!

We were tremendously excited!

We had just completed the acquisition of a company that had great, complementary technical capabilities, a broader geographic footprint, new customers, and accretive profitability.

The CFO and I took over day to day management of the acquired company.  A few weeks after the excitement of the acquisition had died down the CFO called me into his office.

“We are out of cash.  Next week we have to decide to either pay the employees or pay our suppliers.  We don’t have enough cash to do both.” How could we be missing cash?

We were in trouble.

What happened to the cash? How were we going to become solvent again and keep the business afloat for the long term?

It was another case for the Supply Chain Detective™!

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Attracting Millennials Gets Your Digital Supply Chain in Order!

6 Reasons Supply Chain Employees Look For New Jobs!

As explained by Brian Barry of Multichannel Merchant, millennials make a growing cross-section of the American labor force. Ignoring this generation is impossible and attracting millennials in the supply chain is an even bigger hurdle.

Since e-commerce has flooded the industry with more orders and stringent delivery expectations, supply chain leaders must think outside the box to attract and retain the next generation.

In fact, millennials will make up more than 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, so it is time for supply chain executives and leaders to enact the changes necessary to guarantee success in both the current and future supply chain.

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Same Day vs Next Day Delivery … What’s the Difference? (Infographic)

Last Mile Delivery! What is your Strategy?

E-commerce has changed the game of how parcels are transported and delivered to customers with the expectations of same day vs next day delivery.

With the help of advanced technology, the days have become shorter. We no longer have to wait for the sun to rise and set a few times before we receive that box of meat pie that’s probably not safe to eat anymore.

What once felt as if a pack mule was used to deliver a package, now seems like a teleportation device is involved in the delivery.

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The Top 5 Impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Logistics!

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Change Decision Making!

There’s no other way to describe it: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the world of logistics. That may seem like a cliché, or hype, or buzz, but it is true.

The tech is fundamentally changing the way packages move around the world, from predictive analytics to autonomous vehicles and robotics. Here are the top five ways in which Artificial Intelligence is transforming the logistics industry as we know it:

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Inspirational Supply Chain Quotes

What Exactly Is Supply Chain Management? 10 Different Definitions!
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Here we present a series of thought provoking and inspirational Supply Chain quotes.

“If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow; you get somewhere.”  ~ Henry Ford, founder Ford Motor Company

“Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.” ~ W. Edwards Deming

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What’s the Difference Between Blockchain and Supply Chain?

The 5 Levels of Supply Chain Transparency!

The phrase “Supply Chain Management” was first coined in 1982.  The idea of a  “Blockchain” was conceived in 2008 although the concept of a chain of blocks began as early as 1991, and use of the word Blockchain itself has only become popular in the last few years.

Blockchain has rapidly become a very widely used term, at first intended to describe the enabling technology platform behind Bitcoin.  However as awareness and knowledge of the technology has been increasingly understood the words Blockchain and Supply Chain are more often used together.

As people become more familiar with Blockchain, and consider it’s applicability in their strategic Supply Chain plans, we thought it important to clarify how Blockchain and Supply Chain are different yet mutually supportive.

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