The merry-go-round
In thirty years of responsibilities in major industrial groups and ten years as a consultant, I’ve seen a lot of managerial changes! That said, I understand – I myself have rarely stayed in the same role for more than four years. Mea culpa.
This turnover is natural in companies of a certain size and responds to a personal dynamic of career development and organizational adaptation. It is also sometimes the result of power struggles, as the business world is eminently political.
In some companies, such rotation is encouraged, even institutionalized – if you stay in one job for more than three years, people start to see through the dinosaur you’ve become…
This phenomenon, however, can represent a major disruption to the supply chain organization, its dynamics, its projects, and sometimes even its basic operating principles.
The new manager wants to make his or her mark. A review of the existing situation is carried out, possibly with the help of consultants, and inevitably something goes wrong – what was done by the predecessors has to be redone. Once the situation has been assessed, a “back to basics” reset may be initiated, as it has been judged that the fundamentals are not there, and the organization and priorities may be modified, in one of those pendulum swings that managerial practices are so good at.
Challenges for the supply chain
A supply chain requires a global perspective, a systemic understanding. Managing the evolution of a supply chain requires the development of a strategic vision, and the implementation of human resources, processes and systems to translate this vision into reality. It takes time, especially if you want to orchestrate this transformation within a multi-site industrial group.
Over the past ten years, we’ve had the privilege of supporting numerous companies in their supply chain transformation projects, helping them to develop their agility and efficiency through Demand Driven tactics.
Often, the leaders behind these transformations have since moved on to other roles or companies. This has inevitably disrupted the company’s project dynamic, but the effects have been more or less impactful. In some companies, there is a temporary slowdown, then the momentum picks up again. In other companies, things persist but stagnate. In some cases, there’s a radical change of direction, everything is broken up and moved in another direction – a glorious waste of the company’s resources.
How can we make the transformation sustainable?
To ensure the sustainability of transformations, and foster a sustained dynamic over time, we need to implement a system that integrates a shared vision, methods and systems.
For a time, I worked for a tier-one automotive supplier, which was notorious at the time for its high managerial turnover. When I joined the company myself, one of my team congratulated me: I was the tenth Supply Chain Manager in eight years! Meaning: you look nice, but we’re not going to get attached to you…
Despite this, the company was developing successfully, thanks to a highly codified, solid, continuous improvement-oriented production system, based on clear principles and underpinned by a structured training process. The system implemented enabled newcomers to work with continuity.
By way of example, the Toyota production system continues to contribute to the company’s success, decades after Taiichi Ohno, and after many generations of managers.
Building a sustainable adaptive supply chain
When you’re in charge of a supply chain today, think that you won’t be in that role in a while – in a few months or years. When you’re involved in a transformation project, think about the people who will be running the processes in two- or three-years’ time, and who won’t have experienced this project period, rich in reflection, dynamics and training. You need to provide them with guidance to help them continue or accelerate the improvement dynamic without having been an initial player, and in a managerial context that will inevitably be different.
There’s no escaping it: the supply chains of today and tomorrow must enable the company to adapt constantly. For this, you need three things. People, Process and Technology. This article describes this model well, taking as a reference… the Toyota model. https://helpjuice.com/blog/people-process-technology
It is with this logic, this rigor and this vision that we recommend you organize your transformation – by establishing:
- strong principles (flow is at the heart of operations),
- pragmatic, structured and documented processes (from S&OP to order generation and priority management),
- training and a continuous improvement process that encourages team creativity
- the right technology to support teams (yes of course, Intuiflow should be part of this!)
If you stick to this framework, you’ll help your company achieve the “goal” core to the Theory of Constraints: to make money now and in the future.
