As supply chain professionals, we’re trained to anticipate our company’s needs. That’s a good thing. Unfortunately, our training can also lead to some unfortunate habits.
Blog
Product Proliferation in the Food and Beverage Industry and its Impact on Supply Chain Planning
Niche providers are having a significantly greater impact on the Food and Beverage industry than they were just ten years ago. Providers of craft beers and craft soft drinks have experienced substantial growth of market share in their respective segments by providing unique flavors and greater variety to the market. For example, craft beers now … Read more
Religious Wars and Rearguard Fights, How About Peace?
In recent weeks we have seen in France two rather virulent online publications against DDMRP, one stating that “DDMRP is egocentric and short-sighted”, and the other giving a “numerical point of view” on DDMRP, to conclude in short that the methodology was too simplistic.
S&OP, Stop Looking For a Consensus on the Set of Numbers!
Sales & Operations Planning is an important process in most companies. Yet, with the increased volatility in supply and demand, it’s easy to wonder, “What’s the point?”
Remote Demand Driven Implementation
This period of health crisis has paradoxical effects on the progress of DDMRP implementation projects. Some corporations are putting all improvement / transformation projects on hold: expenses must be cut.
How to Manage a Demand Driven Recovery From This Crisis
You have implemented all or part of the Demand Driven operating model to drive your operations, so you should be prepared to deal with situations of uncertainty.
However, the current period presents an unprecedented level of disruption.
Using Lead Time To Be More Agile in VUCA Conditions
In my previous blog, I described how the outbreak of the Coronavirus was an illustration of the Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) conditions supply chains are encountering. Given that VUCA conditions are unpredictable, it’s imperative that supply chain leaders evaluate the actions they can take to improve the overall agility of their operations. The more agile your supply chain operations, the more adept you’ll be in dealing with unpredictable conditions.
What Supply Chain Leaders Must Learn from the Latest Pandemic
In recent weeks, the news media has been flooded with reports on the growing spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe. This highly contagious disease has shut down travel to and from China and several other regions of the world as governments implement aggressive measures to control the spread of the virus. At the time of this writing, there are nearly 130,000 documented cases of COVID-19 infection, and over 5000 people have died.
Is DDMRP Really a New Idea?
Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP) is compatible with, and even supportive of, many other manufacturing philosophies: Lean, TOC, Flow, Pull, etc. However, since some of these ideas have been around for decades, most notably Lean Manufacturing, it can seem like DDMRP is an old idea given new life under a different name.
The Bottom Line Benefits of DDMRP
In my last post, I talked briefly about the benefits of being demand driven using Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP): lower inventory levels and increased service levels.
You may be thinking, “Yeah, Ivan, that all sounds good, but isn’t that what other methodologies like Lean Manufacturing were supposed to do? What’s the difference here?”
If so, you’d be right. DDMRP exploits some of the principles found in other methodologies, but it also modifies them and arranges them into a consistent, organized, and easily executable process. The first key principle, and the one that separates DDMRP from many other approaches, is that of decoupling stock buffers.
Why Improvements in the Manufacturing Sector May Be Unsustainable
Ken Titmuss has helped more than 200 companies with all aspects of their manufacturing planning and control systems and provided their employees with courses to raise their level of understanding of Operations Management and Supply Chain Management. Most of Ken’s work has been in Southern Africa, but more recently, he has run programs in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, USA, UK, Ireland, France, India, Australia, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Mauritius, Singapore, and Lebanon.
How DDMRP Can Help You Improve Operations in 2020
As the DDMRP practice leader for PwC, I’ve had to do my fair share of explaining demand-driven concepts both internally and to customers. I want to thank Demand-Driven Technologies for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts on their blog.
In this first post, I want to speak to the business leaders in the company about why they should be exploring the benefits of DDMRP. In a follow-up post, I’ll dig more into some key DDMRP concepts for the practitioners in the audience who are well-versed in traditional material requirements and supply chain planning.
