The promise of Vendor Managed Inventory, or VMI, is great: by sharing information and responsibility, VMI seeks to establish a mutually beneficial relationship where both sides are able to more smoothly and accurately control the flow of materials in a supply chain. The reality is often more complicated. But first, a little history. In the … Read more
The global health crisis has shone a spotlight on pharmaceutical and medical device supply chains—and highlighted their fragility. Yet long before the pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry was suffering severe shortages, even though drug stock-outs can be life-threatening for patients. One may wonder about the dynamics that have led over the years to this situation: the … Read more
In 2004, a TV station owner in France created controversy by cynically claiming that he was selling his advertisers “available brain time” from his viewers. More than fifteen years later, the available brain time that most of us possess has shrunk considerably, as we are constantly bombarded by a flow of information, along with explicit … Read more
What is the normal demand for a product, and what’s atypical? How can we size stocks according to demand variability and account for spikes in demand? These issues do not date back to the advent of DDMRP. However, DDMRP gives them a new framework by integrating the notion of “qualified demand” into the net flow … Read more
Okay, 2020 was an exceptional year with the pandemic. The impacts on our personal and professional lives were extreme. 2021 remains very uncertain. Measuring global economic uncertainty If we take a step back and disregard Covid-19, however, we can see that the uncertainty facing our companies is constantly increasing. This is not a consultant’s speech, … Read more
If you live in an industrial or distribution environment, chances are that your product portfolios have multiplied over the last ten or twenty years. Marketing differentiation, personalization, configured items, depth of distribution networks: these are possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of references to manage. In other words, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of references … Read more
DDMRP implementation has long been the domain of experimentation, pilots and deployments of limited scope. With a few exceptions, small and medium-sized enterprises, with faster decision-making processes, were the first a few years ago to adopt the methodology, as well as isolated sites of larger companies. Over the past two to three years, a new … Read more
Let’s be zen in the VUCA world. What is Heijunka? In the implementation of a Lean pull flow derived from the Toyota production system, the Heijunka is an essential mechanism whose key role is to level load the flow. Typically, a Heijunka controls the pace and sequence of production on a given flow. As paradoxical … Read more
Instead of Big Data, Why Don’t We Take Care of our Small Data First? Big data and advanced analytics are front page news in the supply chain and have been on the rise for years in the vocabulary of consulting firms and software vendors. Accumulating masses of information, passing it through the mill of statistical … Read more
If the forecasts are wrong, what is the point of forecasting? The subject of forecasting has been stirring the supply chain community for ages. We have invested a lot, and continue to invest in this subject, with a renewed interest in the age of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data. We are keeping our fingers crossed: perhaps … Read more
Developing an agile supply chain means reducing lot sizes, reducing lead times, and increasing replenishment frequencies. All this is virtuous to speed up flows, but can conflict with real and legitimate production or transport constraints. If you’ve been involved in Lean initiatives, you’ve probably faced these trade-offs. Reducing batch sizes increases the number of changeovers, … Read more
Four years ago I was invited to introduce DDMRP to a team from a medical device company, a subsidiary of a German group. Supply chain, purchasing, production, quality were in the room. They wanted to know more because they were suffering from long lead times, too much stock, unsatisfactory service levels, and faced many emergencies. The company had … Read more
