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Why Managing by Exception is Key to Supply Chain Efficiency

warning symbol - supply chain efficiency

Every planner today has hundreds or even thousands of references to manage. Often, these references must be synchronized during the assembly of products with complex bills of materials, where the slightest shortfall stops the flow. If you manufacture an electronic assembly with hundreds of components, a simple diode that costs nothing can stop everything. How … Read more

Demand Driven and Supply Chain Maturity

supply chain maturity - ladders

We often get questions or comments about the level of supply chain maturity required for companies to be ready to implement DDMRP and realize the significant operational benefits it brings. These questions are sometimes paradoxical.  Many companies tell us things like: “DDMRP sounds interesting, and well-suited to our environment, but we must first achieve more … Read more

Demand Driven Manufacturing

You have probably already seen this diagram, which summarizes different manufacturing typologies, in one form or another: Is the Demand Driven model a good fit for these typologies? How would your demand driven manufacturing implementation change to support each environment? In each of these flow typologies, with the exception of Engineering-to-Order (ETO), customer demand moves … Read more

Harmonizing Intuition and Data-Driven Approaches in Managing Supply Chain Complexity

intuitive supply chain: brain

What happens in our brain when we exercise our intuition?  A French scientific magazine recently devoted a fascinating dossier to intuition (Science & Vie, August 2021 https://www.science-et-vie.com/archives/n-1247 ). It appears in particular that intuition is the automatic implementation by our brain of knowledge accumulated in our long-term memory. Far from being a random and therefore unreliable process, … Read more

End-to-End Supply Chain Planning in an Upstream/Downstream Organization

For small and medium enterprises, the question of upstream supply chain vs. downstream supply chain management does not arise. The factory is in direct contact with the company’s customers, and the supply chain team handles the end-to-end planning process: sales forecasts, order taking, production planning, procurement, inventory management and distribution. In large, multi-site groups, things … Read more

Creating A Demand Driven Supply Chain Action Plan

If you are an operational supply chain manager, you have a taste for action. Reacting quickly, making fast decisions, getting a small dose of adrenaline under stress: this is your daily life. If you are an operational sales manager, you need to get things moving. Signing a deal, providing a decisive answer that leaves the … Read more

We’re Celebrating Our 10-Year Anniversary

DDMRP was put into the public domain in 2011, when the third edition of Orlicky’s Materials Requirements Planning book was published. It was also in 2011 that Demand Driven Technologies was created. The first versions of the Replenishment+ material requirements planning and DBR+ production planning solutions had been developed in the mid-2000s by the Constraint … Read more

DDS&OP: Distinguishing Between Tactical and Strategic Horizons

In my career, I must have participated in more than 200 monthly S&OP meetings, at the level of a factory or industrial group management committee. A recurring challenge during these reviews was to get the team to look over the horizon and prepare the company to face its medium/long term challenges in a coordinated and … Read more

Does the Demand Driven methodology apply to my company?

demand driven methodology - team

We are all different… The question is a recurring one. “We manufacture to order, is this relevant to us?” “For the automotive industry, yes, but we are in the aerospace industry, we have many more items!” “We have many constraints, is it compatible?” “It’s for large corporations, isn’t it? We are a SME!” “Okay for … Read more

The Perfect Production Schedule Doesn’t Exist

production schedule - stopwatch

Industry 4.0 and digitalization are on the rise. Technology is moving into our shop floors. LCD touch screens are gradually replacing physical boards and post-its. However, we must recognize that the vast majority of our workshops, however complex, are planned or scheduled in Excel, right? The promise of scheduling algorithms Scheduling solutions have existed for … Read more