Posts categorized as 'Best practices'

[On-demand webinar] Paving the way for digital transformation in the automotive supply chain

MikeMcAllister

[On-demand webinar] Digital transformation for the automotive supply chainContrary to popular belief, the Ford Motor Company did not invent the assembly line.

But in 1913, Henry Ford did revolutionize it by adding a conveyor system to move the cars along the line, reducing the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to less than three.

Fast forward to present day to find the headlights of the electric car peeking around the nearest corner, with autonomous driving technology trailing not far behind. This fundamental shift in the automotive industry, when paired with the alternative energy expectations of the modern automobile consumer, brings the industry to an inflection point not entirely unlike the one Ford ushered in with the advent of mass production.

Read the full story

Independent research reveals how organizations can succeed in a brave new tariff-driven trade world

MikeMcAllister

Ventana Whitepaper - Winning in the New Era of TradeIt sounds ominous, but it’s a brave new tariff-driven trade world out there – a reality senior executives whose organizations operate global supply chains are coming to grips with.

Navigating the latest tariffs, and the resulting ripple effects on currencies along with fluctuations in labor costs make it increasingly difficult for companies managing complex multinational supply chains to make effective sourcing, purchasing and production decisions fast enough to stay competitive.

And by staying competitive, we’re talking about the bottom line. Because at the end of the day, that’s how corporate leadership is measured.

According to Ventana Research in a report commissioned by Kinaxis, only 35 percent of companies with more than 1000 employees say they’re able to react quickly to changing marketing conditions – an astonishingly low number.

Read the full story

Building the foundation of your digital supply chain

AlexaCheater

Webinar | Building the foundation of your digital supply chainIt’s getting harder and harder to get ahead—and stay ahead—of the constantly shifting realities of today’s interconnected world. Unstable markets, growing customer demands, emerging competition and deep-rooted reliance on outdated, legacy systems are causing chaos and complexity.

Traditional supply chain issues are only getting compounded by all of these new and emerging data sources. Everyone’s turning to digital for the answers. And it’s no wonder when companies with digital supply chains are seeing enterprise-wide results like 25% faster response times, 30% working capital reductions and up to 110% higher operating margins.

Read the full story

What does GDPR mean for your supply chain?

NazliErdogus

How to Prepare for the EU’s New GDPR Data Protection Rules – KinaxisThe EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most important change in personal data privacy regulation in 20 years. It’s aimed at tech giants and small and medium enterprises alike.

As we count down the days until the GDPR enters into force on May 25, it’s important to recognize how your supply chain is affected and how it can become GDPR compliant.

What is GDPR and how will it impact my supply chain?

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a few critical issues that will have a direct impact on your business and supply chain.

Read the full story

How Uber Parallels the 6 Design Principles of Digital Supply Chain

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Digital supply chainDigital supply chain is the “in” thing! Don’t take my word for it, though. Just google the term. You will come across many articles talking about how supply chains are being remade by industry 4.0, internet of things (IoT), 3D printing, big data analytics, cloud computing and so on. But what most of these articles focus on are the means rather than the ends for the digital supply chain. On a day-to-day basis I speak to a number of supply chain practitioners. Most of them tell me they are at some stage of evolution with their digitization strategy. However, much confusion exists in terms of what constitutes a digital supply chain. So, I decided to write this blog to share my point of view on the topic.

Supply chain digitization is not simply taking existing information and capturing it in a digital format. It is not about automating your existing SCM processes. It is not about layering in Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) as a band aid to connect disjointed processes. It is about having the most current information to run your supply chain effectively, available on demand, so you can service your customers and grow profitably. In other words, think of a Google search for supply chain. You ask questions and you get answers!

Here, I will introduce 6 design principles that make up a digital supply chain. I will lean on the example of Uber, how it digitized the taxi experience, and draw parallels to digital supply chain. Let us take a look at these design principles:

Read the full story

Are Short-Sighted Goals Holding Your Supply Chain Back?

AlexaCheater

close up of broken glasses and snellen chartSupply chains are growing more complex by the minute. With increased outsourcing, companies’ broad market penetration and expansion, not to mention the overall volume of products, it’s no wonder the difficulty in integrating all those internal and external supply chain nodes has grown exponentially.

Smart companies are turning to improving their supply chain visibility to help combat this connectivity problem, but the truly wise ones realize end-to-end visibility alone won’t yield effective supply chain orchestration. It’s just one step of many on the path to achieving higher levels of maturity.

Gartner’s five-stage demand-driven maturity model for supply chains outlines visibility as a key focus of supply chains in Stage 3 (Integrate), but with two more stages (Collaborate, Orchestrate) on their maturity model, it can’t be the end goal.

Read the full story

‘Best in Class’ Supply chain from a Road warrior perspective – Part 4

CarolMcIntosh

supply chain technologyInsight #4 – Embracing Supply Chain Technology as a way to change SCM

I have been following the United Nations Climate Change Conference. If you were to ask anyone what he or she thought about climate change, you would probably hear:

  1. Excitement
  2. Skepticism
  3. Concern or Fear

I came to the realization that you would get the same reaction from a supply chain executive when discussing supply chain technology.

When I refer to supply chain technology, I am talking about software to support the fundamental supply chain business processes — Demand, Supply, Inventory Planning, and Sales and Operations Planning.

Excitement

  • We have electric cars, new transportation systems, wind turbines, solar panels. There is much excitement about technology favorably impacting the climate.
  • Like climate change, when you hear about new supply chain and manufacturing technologies, and the advancements being made, you want to be part of the sea change. Advanced analytics, cloud solutions, cross functional collaboration, big data, in-memory computing, 3D printing. These are all advancements in supply chain that are changing the way you do business. You will be more competitive, more profitable with more market share if you embrace these advancements.

Read the full story

How Prepared Are You Really? Supply Chain Black Swans

AlexaCheater

Supply chain black swanSupply chain risk. It’s a topic that just never seems to go away (nor should it!). Everyone and their uncle has probably read at least one article, blog, research report, etc. on the topic. We’ve covered it here extensively on the 21st Century Supply Chain blog, and Kinaxis has even produced a great infographic about it. There’s no denying it’s a very important subject when it comes to good supply chain management.

Recently however, I’ve been thinking about supply chain risk in a whole other light. Thanks mostly to a fabulous guest post by MIT’s Yossi Sheffi on the Wall Street Journal, which I had the good fortune to stumble across. In it, Sheffi talks about the concept of a ‘black swan’, no not the risk of slightly unstable ballerinas invading your supply chain, but rather a term popularized in 2007 by Nassim Taleb that’s used to describe occurrences that are thought to be impossible.

At first blush, it all sounds a bit familiar. Make sure you prepare for the unexpected. Got it. We’ve long been proponents of making sure your supply chain risk management strategy targets three key areas: anticipated risk, uncontrolled anticipated risk, and unanticipated risk. Surely this concept of a black swan fits squarely into the third category, which is characterized by an event that is entirely out of our control and hard to anticipate and plan for. And it does.

Read the full story