Bernard Milian

An entire industry thrives on the quest for the holy grail of reliable forecasting. But what happens when we look more closely at probabilistic, statistical, and AI-driven forecasting methods?

Great supply chain leaders often have a taste for action, collaboration, and continuous improvement. But what’s the most important skill for a supply chain leader to have?

In Tetris, colored bricks fall from the top of the screen. It’s up to you to orient them as they fall, so they fit into each other. The role of a production planner is very similar.

There are three types of buffers that help manufacturers deal with variability: stock, time, and capacity. Which is the most powerful?

The aeronautical supply chain was not designed to ensure the fast and reliable flow of goods, but to meet detailed technical, quality, and safety specifications. How can Demand Driven methods help?

Can MRP help you restock your fridge? From meal planning to demand shaping, we chart the six simple steps.

One of the meeting points for the company’s Finance and Supply Chain teams is the Excess and Obsolete, or “E&O” review. E&O are subject to a financial review at least annually, or quarterly in particular for listed companies. The purpose of this review is to determine the financial reserves to be made in the accounts … Read more

Supply chain resilience is an imperative in a VUCA world. The tremors of recent years, from Brexit and Covid to the war in Ukraine, have prompted many companies and governments to realize how fragile supply chains can be. In the western press these last months, there is talk of reshoring, reindustrialization, and shortening our supply … Read more

To size our stocks and replenish our products, we need to use a demand assumption. In a Demand Driven approach, the supply chain is scheduled based on real consumption, but for consumption to occur, it must have been initiated by available products, supplied based on a demand hypothesis.

The old-fashioned S&OP is a laborious and sequential process. The end of the month has just been closed. We know the sales, after aggregating inputs from all countries. We compare actual sales with forecasts, we generate statistical forecasts for the coming months, and we start the process of collaboration with the different marketing and sales … Read more

The concept of the supply chain control tower has become very popular. But what exactly does it mean? Magic keywords abound in this field: Digitalization, advanced analytics, end-to-end, big data, collaborative, real-time, etc. All this sounds attractive, but what is the reality behind the gimmicks? What is a supply chain control tower and what does … Read more