Author Archives: Teddy Nee

The Analytics Supply Chain

Posted on by

Businesses across many industries spend millions of dollars employing advanced analytics to manage and improve their supply chains. Organizations look to analytics to help with sourcing raw materials more efficiently, improving manufacturing productivity, optimizing inventory, minimizing distribution cost, and other related objectives.

But the results can be less than satisfactory. It often takes too long to source the data, build the models, and deliver the analytics-based solutions to the multitude of decision makers in an organization. Sometimes key steps in the process are omitted completely. In other words, the solution for improving the supply chain, i.e. advanced analytics, suffers from the same problems that it aims to solve. Therefore, reducing inefficiencies in the analytics supply chain should be a critical component of any analytics initiative in order to generate better outcomes. Because one of us (Zahir) spent twenty years optimizing supply chains with analytics at transportation companies, the concept was a naturally appealing one for us to take a closer look at.

More broadly speaking, the concept of the analytics supply chain is applicable outside of its namesake business domain. It is agnostic to business and analytic domains. Advanced analytics for marketing offers, credit decisions, pricing decisions, or a multitude of other areas could benefit from the analytics supply chain metaphor.

Read more at The Analytics Supply Chain

Please leave your opinions in the comment box below and subscribe us to get more updates in your inbox.

Related articles

Commentary: Managing risk in the global supply chain

Posted on by

The World Economic Forum defines global risk as an uncertain event that, if it occurs, can cause significant negative impact for several countries or industries within the next 10 years.
Global supply chains create both opportunity and risk. Some of the macro issues we face both in day-to-day operations and future planning include cybersecurity, terrorism, climate change, economic instability, and political discord.
More specific to executives who manage global supply chains, risk is more apparent, and on a micro-basis potentially more consequential in the short term, in areas such as but not limited to reducing spend, leveraging sourcing options, creating sustainability, political and currency instability, government regulations in the U.S. and abroad, trade compliance management, free trade agreements, energy costs, and what the incoming Trump administration will mean for global trade.
Since the recession in 2008-2009, we have witnessed a serious uptick in companies worldwide reviewing their operational exposure and then creating risk strategies in managing these vulnerabilities. Risk exposure can negatively impact margin, profits, growth strategies, operational stability and personnel maintenance.
For companies operating in global supply chains the risks are vast, convoluted and often unanticipated. As a result, we tend to be unprepared for the impacts.

Read more at Commentary: Managing risk in the global supply chain

We welcome any kinds of opinions, share it at the comment box below. Subscribe us to get updates in your inbox.

Related articles

2017 Parcel Express Roundtable: Paying for peak performance

Posted on by

It can be hard to believe that very much happens in a year, but that theory is put to the test when it comes to the parcel express market.

In fact, over the past 12 months we’ve seen major changes in pricing from the parcel duopoly of FedEx and UPS; the accelerated emergence of regional parcel players; and don’t forget we’re all watching the increasing power and reach of e-commerce giant Amazon as it grows its own delivery capabilities globally.

These developments require parcel shippers to do whatever it takes to stay on top of their parcel game from both a financial and operational perspective. To help them along, Logistics Management has gathered Jerry Hempstead, president of Hempstead Consulting, a parcel advisory firm; David Ross, transportation and logistics director at investment firm Stifel; and Rob Martinez, president and CEO at Shipware, an audit and parcel consulting services company.

Over the next few pages, our experts offer their insight into what’s driving parcel market trends and offers some practical advice for how shippers need to re-adjust to ever-changing market conditions.

Logistics Management (LM): How would you describe today’s parcel marketplace?

Jerry Hempstead: All of the parcel carriers are doing well in volume and earnings—even the USPS is making money if you back out the Congressional mandates. And it’s clear that e-commerce is driving the volumes. To top it off, service levels this year are at record levels and are predictable and consistent.

My observation is that there’s no statistical difference between the service performance offered by FedEx and UPS across a year’s worth of activity, although FedEx offers a faster delivery on ground to about 25% more city pairs than UPS. This pressure on speeding up the promise and refining the networks to make the magic happen will only improve the consumer experience in parcel services.

Read more at 2017 Parcel Express Roundtable: Paying for peak performance

Leave your comments below if you have any opinions and subscribe us to be the first to get our updates.

Related articles

Great Suppliers Make Great Supply Chains

Posted on by

As an analyst who covers supply chain management (SCM) and procurement practice across industry, I tend to keep my keyboard focused on the disruptive themes that continue to re-define it. That said, if you’re expecting me go on about the unprecedented growth of the SCM solution markets, the accelerated pace of innovation, tech adoption, social change, etc., don’t hold your breath. I can’t, as the data argue otherwise. Too many of us conflate diversification with acceleration –and there’s a difference.

The most notable, defining advances of the last decade (Amazon, Twitter, Google, etc.) share something in common: they do not require consumer investment. If you take those monsters out of the equation and focus on corporate solution environments, the progress, while steady, has not been remarkable. Let’s just say there remains plenty of room for improvement, especially in supply chain and procurement practice areas.

I fell onto this tangent unexpectedly. It happened while interviewing Mr. Dan Georgescu, Ford Motor Company, adjunct Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management, a highly regarded expert in the field of automotive industry supplier development. “For supply chains to be successful, performance measurement must become a continuous improvement process integrated throughout,” he said. “For a number of reasons, including the fact that our industry is increasingly less vertically integrated, supplier development is absolutely core to OEM performance.”

Read more at Great Suppliers Make Great Supply Chains

If you have any comments about this topic, share it with us below. Subscribe to get updates in your inbox.

Related articles

One-Page Data Warehouse Development Steps

Posted on by

Data warehouse is the basis of Business Intelligence (BI). It not only provides the data storage of your production data but also provides the basis of the business intelligence you need. Almost all of the books today have very elaborated and detailed steps to develop a data warehouse. However, none of them is able to address the steps in a single page. Here, based on my experience in data warehouse and BI, I summarize these steps in a page. These steps give you a clear road map and a very easy plan to follow to develop your data warehouse.

Step 1. De-Normalization. Extract an area of your production data into a “staging” table containing all data you need for future reporting and analytics. This step includes the standard ETL (extraction, transformation, and loading) process.

Step 2. Normalization. Normalize the staging table into “dimension” and “fact” tables. The data in the staging table can be disposed after this step. The resulting “dimension” and “fact” tables would form the basis of the “star” schema in your data warehouse. These data would support your basic reporting and analytics.

Step 3. Aggregation. Aggregate the fact tables into advanced fact tables with statistics and summarized data for advanced reporting and analytics. The data in the basic fact table can then be purged, if they are older than a year.

Read more at One-Page Data Warehouse Development Steps

What do you think about this topic? Share your opinions below and subscribe us to get updates in your inbox.

 

Related articles

Technology’s Role in Managing the Evolution of the Customer Centric Supply Chain

Posted on by

Having an effective supply chain has always been key to retail success. Whether you call it micro-merchandising or the customer-centric supply chain, the challenge has traditionally been to quickly identify trends or activity in a store that is outperforming the norm, and rapidly roll this out to all stores with similar attributes and customer behaviours. Indeed, much of the ‘flair’ that separated well- from poorly performing retail operators was down to the ability of some key individuals to spot trends, clusters and patterns that drove better understanding of customer behaviour, and act upon these insights to deliver to customers’ demands.

This macro-level insight is, however, no longer good enough. Today, retailers need to be able to understand not only how items are performing across the entire retail estate as well as within individual stores and spot trends and patterns accordingly; they also need to be able to marry this micro-level performance to geographic and demographic information to reflect the demand from a particular store’s customers. And, they need to be able to forecast how those same items will be performing in weeks and months to come.

This is the capability that is required to truly deliver today’s customer-centric supply chain. But it demands a level of detail simply too difficult for humans to manage. Software solutions are designed to raise the average performance level by helping the poor or below average operators benefit from the expertise of the higher performers and placing this supporting technology in the hands of those key individuals who would act as district or regional manager.

But the needs of today’s customer-centric supply chain have outpaced even the majority of these solutions.

Read more Technology’s Role in Managing the Evolution of the Customer Centric Supply Chain

Subscribe us to get updates in your inbox, and if you have any questions, share it below in the comment box.

Related articles

Socialbakers bakes its data analytics down to a Social Health Index

Posted on by

Can social media analytics be compressed into an elevator pitch?

That was a question Lenovo asked its social analytics firm, Socialbakers. The result, launching today, is a Social Health Index that presents a few top-level indicators of a brand’s standing in social media vis-a-vis any competitors.

“When you’re with a VP, you have to [quickly] give them a very clear idea of where we stand,” Lenovo’s director of the Digital and Social Center of Excellence Rod Strother told us. Given that need, Lenovo then provided input to Socialbakers for developing the Index.

It offers a single top-level number on a 100-point scale, as well as single numbers representing the client’s — or a competitor’s — social health on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Other platforms will be added at some point, the social analytics firm said.

Additionally, an area graph visually depicts the four groups of data that go into the scores — participation, follower/fan/subscriber acquisition and retention, and shareability.

“We find it’s difficult for clients to comprehend all” the statistics in ordinary social analytics reports, Socialbakers’ CEO and co-founder Jan Rezab told VentureBeat.

“It’s very, very complicated,” he said, noting that his firm tracks over 180 metrics for social media.

Read more at Socialbakers bakes its data analytics down to a Social Health Index

Share your opinions with us in the comment box. Subscribe to get updates in your inbox.

Related articles

DHL establishes Supply Chain Distribution Centre in Brazil

Posted on by

DHL Supply Chain, the contract logistics specialist within Deutsche Post DHL Group, consolidated the logistics operations of three Sanofi divisions in Brazil by establishing a new distribution centre in Guarulhos, near São Paulo. The project, initiated by Sanofi in 2014, covers all portfolios of Sanofi, Sanofi Pasteur and Medley Brazil. In addition to the operation of the newly installed logistics centre, Sanofi redesigned its distribution networks for the complete Brazilian market and the corresponding export processes. The development of the new site means investments of 200 million Euros between 2015 and 2020. Already today, it is one of the largest distribution centres of Sanofi worldwide and the largest operated by DHL in Brazil for the healthcare sector.

Guarulhos was chosen as the ideal location due to its proximity to Sanofi’s industrial plants, large consumer centres and main logistical hubs of the country such as the Port of Santos. With 36,000 square meters of fully air-conditioned storage area and almost 50,000 pallet positions, DHL’s Distribution Centre has increased Sanofi’s daily shipping capacity significantly, especially with regards to operations of cold chain processes. Thereby ensuring speed, quality and safety for all steps along the supply chain.

“The objective of this project was to simplify and enhance Sanofi’s storage operations and distribution network in Brazil. Consolidating these operations into a single distribution centre has enabled us to foster synergies and streamline the entire process,” says Javier Bilbao, CEO DHL Supply Chain Brazil.

Read more at DHL establishes Supply Chain Distribution Centre in Brazil

Share your comments below and subscribe us to get updates in your inbox.

Related articles

The Value of a Supply Chain Executive Education

Posted on by

Executive-level supply chain positions have gained both prominence and importance for today’s global companies, and to support this trend, universities, colleges, professional organizations, and training firms have enhanced their supply chain and logistics programs to help executives stay current on supply chain trends.

It wasn’t that long ago that supply chain managers worked mainly behind the scenes, stealthily orchestrating the movement of products from the raw material stage to manufacturing/production and right on through to the final delivery of the finished goods.

Typically occupied by employees who had successfully “worked their way up” through the company, these executive-level supply chain positions have over the last few years gained both prominence and importance for today’s global companies.

To support this trend, universities and colleges have enhanced their supply chain and logistics degree programs; organizations like APICS and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) have expanded their certification programs; and training firms offer myriad options to help executives stay current on supply chain trends.

These executive education offerings provide executives with the opportunity to hone their skills, upgrade their technology acumen and better understand the inner workings of the modern-day supply chain.

Read more at The Value of a Supply Chain Executive Education

Share your opinions about this article with us. Subscribe to get updates.

Related articles

The Bank of England has a chart that shows whether a robot will take your job

Posted on by

robot jobs

The threat is real, as this chart showing the rise and fall of various jobs historically shows. Agricultural workers were replaced largely by machinery decades ago. Telephonists have only recently been replaced by software programmes. This looks like good news for accountants and hairdressers. Their unique skills are either enhanced by software (accountants) or not affected by it at all (hairdressers).

The BBC website contains a handy algorithm for calculating the probability of your job being robotised. For an accountant, the probability of vocational extinction is a whopping 95%. For a hairdresser, it is 33%. On these numbers, the accountant’s sun has truly set, but the relentless upwards ascent of the hairdresser is set to continue. For economists, like me, the magic number is 15%.

Another data analysis about jobs which will be phased out as time goes. It is an interesting analysis of historical job data. However, after I glanced through the bank report referenced in the article, I am not sure robots are the reason of the job replacement. For example, it could be replaced by cheap labor in foreign countries. The bank report shows only the jobs subject to be phased out due to technology advancement. People could just become productive. So, do not take robots too seriously!

Read more at The Bank of England has a chart that shows whether a robot will take your job

What do you think about this article? Share you opinions in the comment box and subscribe us to get updates.

Related articles