Have you ever watched a relay race? Each runner gives the best of his performance for his portion of the race, and passes the baton to the next runner in a predefined area. In a 4x100m relay, to pass the baton there is a 20m transmission zone: 10m before the 100m, and 10m after. This … Read more
A Demand Driven Buffer, what’s that? In the Demand Driven jargon we talk about “buffers” of different types. What are they used for? How do they work? This post introduces some basic concepts, which are explored in detail in the Demand Driven Institute’s training courses. Buffers and variability. If you have any experience in supply chain you … Read more
In one of my previous lives, I was responsible for a supply chain where most of the suppliers were in Asia, supplying our European factories and distribution centres by sea. Historically our service was poor and our inventory was overflowing everywhere. Our Chinese or Thai suppliers only accepted monthly orders, and imposed at least 2 months of firm orders on their production plan … Read more
Since the 1990s, the Western automotive industry has widely adopted the practices derived from the Toyota production system. 5S, continuous improvement is the daily life of automotive suppliers.Pull flow – formerly known as Just in Time – is at the heart of these practices. It is facilitated by the fact that the automotive upstream supply … Read more
“I understand that we should replenish our points of sale with DDMRP for permanent products, but can you also do it for promotional products?” Our client asked us.
A year later, after multiple simulations based on sales history, and the implementation of a dozen promotional campaigns, the demonstration is there: it works very well, but the model needs to be adapted.
Over the decades we have developed more and more technology for our supply chains, invented sophisticated algorithms, interconnected remote sites around the world, traced in real time the slightest event. This debauchery of means, computing power, software and complicated acronyms would tend to make us think that it’s all scientific, mathematical, electronic and fantastic!
In supply chain management, we’re often asked to make quick, buffer-related decisions with the best information available. We do this in the real world, too.
If you flip a coin, you have a 50/50 chance of winning. As long as the coin is evenly weighted and the coin flipper isn’t playing a trick on you, it’s going to come up heads or tails a roughly even number of times. There may be situations where it comes up one or the other more frequently, but those are outliers that even out the more times you flip the coin.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” Leonardo da Vinci
Over the last few decades, manufacturers and distributors have made huge technological investments in their supply chains. At the same time, we’ve invested heavily in developing sophisticated supply chain management processes. Too often, however, any similarity between our technologies (ERP, DRP, APS, etc.) and our processes is a matter of luck more than design.
Theory of constraints sometimes uses terminology that discourages us from taking the right perspective. If, like me, you have a somewhat rebellious mindset, controlling constraints isn’t very inspiring.
The bullwhip effect: Supply Chain Practitioners know this phenomenon quite well – a slight change in demand downstream may create big swings upstream, and reversely small delays upstream may create a catastrophe to downstream supply chain partners.
There is often a misunderstanding. How, by implementing software, can we reduce lead times?
The answer is, we can’t… Reducing lead times does not come from magical software.
