Tag Archives: Supply chain

Zara’s Agile Project Management Advantage

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Zara is a fast fashion retailer that has achieved staggering success since its inception in 1975. Compared to its Zara peers in retail, Zara has one practice that helps contribute to its competitive advantage: an agile project management oriented supply chain.

Agile Project Management
Broadly, agile project management is based on the 12 principles brought forth by the agile manifesto. This manifesto forms the basis for a project management theory that focuses on iterations, adaptations, collaboration, and constant improvement. As opposed to many other project management designs, agile project management is a non-linear approach to problem solving that hopes to provide flexibility and adaptability, without having to go back to the start with each iteration undertaken.

While originally developed for software and technology problem solving, agile project management has gained acceptance in the supply chain industry for its ability to help companies adapt to market dynamics. In the same way agile project management helps a software company develop non-linear solutions to problems, agile project management allows a supply chain to creatively adapt to market evolutions without having to disrupt supply chains from start to finish. Zara has used this agile supply chain to earn a distinct and unmatched advantage in retail.

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Resilinc to Unveil the Top 10 Supply Chain Risk Management Insights of All Time

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The Top 10 Supply Chain Risk Management insights of all time are the most impactful conclusions, lessons learned, and heuristics that all SCRM practitioners should be acutely aware of in order to maximize their chance of success in achieving risk management and resilience performance excellence. Bindiya Vakil, founder and CEO of Resilinc, and Ann Grackin, CEO of ChainLink Research, will lead the discussion.

“These are the insights born from real-life experience in the trenches, battle scars, and “ah hah” moments,” said Vakil. “They are based on Resilinc and ChainLink Research company experience—working with the most complex supply chains in the world as solution providers, consultants, and practitioners in previous lives—as well as crowd-sourced contributions from risk thought leaders and luminaries in industry and academia.”

The top 10 insights will each be presented as important threads in an overall strategic-framework fabric. When implemented in their totality, the top 10 insights may form the backbone of a successful best-practice-driven SCRM program.

Participants in this Webcast will have the opportunity to:

1. Gain insights and best practices to improve SCRM and resilience program performance.

2. Apply insights as part of a strategic framework for success.

3. Benchmark their organization’s resilience program best practice adoption against the top 10 insight list.

Read more at Resilinc to Unveil the Top 10 Supply Chain Risk Management Insights of All Time

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Seven Supply Chain Resolutions for 2015

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Map your Extended Supply Chain: Our collective supply chain eyes were opened in 2011 as a result of the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, and then severe flooding in Thailand that decimated key suppliers in the high-tech sector.

Model Your Supply Chain: A relatively small but growing number of companies maintain an active network model of their supply chains that they use for on-going decision-making, from inbound supply flows to what products to make where.

Develop a Talent Strategy: Do you really have a plan for finding and developing supply chain talent? A few leaders do – but not many. A few years ago, Pepsico took a look at this – and wasn’t happy with what it found.

Start Benchmarking: In general, we do far too little benchmarking in the supply chain. I am referring not just to maybe participating in some survey or service that allows you to compare your results (sort of) with those of others, but meeting with companies to see how they do things, and swap and compare ideas and practices.

Review Your Technology Portfolio: Do you know exactly what software you have where? Do you have any “shelfware,” meaning software you paid for but never implemented, either in total or at certain locations?

Paint a Vision for becoming Demand-Driven: In the early 2000s Procter & Gamble came up with the “consumer-driven supply chain” concept, which the then AMR Research morphed into its demand-driven supply networks.

Start Lunch Time Education Meetings: I know a few companies – Campbell Soup used to be one of them and maybe still is – that hold weekly or monthly Friday “brown bag” lunch days focused on education. Could be an internal team member presenting insight into their area of operation.

Read more at Seven Supply Chain Resolutions for 2015

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US Supply Chains More Vulnerable to Climate Risks

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US Supply Chains More Vulnerable to Climate Risks

Lack of preparation currently leaves supply chains in Brazil, China, India and the US more vulnerable to climate risks than those in Europe and Japan, according to a report by CDP and Accenture.

Supply chain sustainability revealed: a country comparison also finds suppliers in China and India deliver the greatest financial return on investment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and demonstrate the strongest appetite for collaboration across the value chain.

The research is based on data collected from 3,396 companies on behalf of 66 multinational purchasers that work with CDP to manage the environmental impacts of their supply chains. They account for $1.3 trillion in procurement spend, and include organizations such as Nissan and Unilever.

Analysis and scoring of suppliers’ climate change mitigation strategies, carbon emissions reporting, target setting, emission reduction initiatives, climate risk procedures, uptake of low-carbon energy, and water risk assessment efforts, as disclosed by suppliers to CDP, were used to create a sustainability risk/response matrix that shows how well prepared suppliers across 11 major economies are to mitigate and manage environmental risk in their supply chains.

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Cloud-Based Supply Chain Faces Scrutiny

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Cloud-Based Supply Chain Faces Scrutiny

As the supply chain looks for new tools to manage increasing complexity, as well as a need to manage risk and other variables quickly and proactively, cloud-based solutions, which are relatively underutilized today, will become more common.

What are some of the common misconceptions around cloud computing and supply chain applications?

Supply chain has generally been a very slow adaptor to new technologies, and cloud computing is no exception. Besides data security and ownership, other factors come into play around how the infrastructure would behave in terms of excess volumes and concerns the in-house IT team may have with feeling helpless when it comes to issues around performance, managing downtime, and handling end customer pressures.

Often, lack of management support is cited as a reason for not adopting cloud technology. Why do you think the corner office is reluctant to support these sorts of initiatives?

Not all senior managers have yet to fully understand the implications of moving into cloud. They still look it as a pure cost saving initiative vis a vis the risks and the litigations they may end up facing in case they encounter issues around their data. Managers would like to hear success stories that [demonstrate that the concerns about] data security are all addressed by big product vendors, which are now moving over to cloud.

What are the best ways that supply chain managers can “speak the language” of business leaders to quantify the potential benefit of cloud-based apps for the supply chain?

The ROI of moving to a cloud-based service is very fast. Customers need not invest in capex for their expensive infrastructure, licenses, and upgrades. This can be very easily worked out. Another factor is that often, companies invest in large IT teams and have to constantly manage them – thereby deviating and investing in a division that is not their core business. By moving to the cloud, they can overcome this by maintaining a lean IT team.

Do you have any personal views about utilizing cloud-based system? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages?

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What is the most crucial goal for supply chains?

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What is the most crucial goal for supply chains?

One of the driving forces behind the expansion of business relationships is a mindful effort to reduce risk. This is particularly true in supply chains.

To be sure, the pursuit for lower-cost materials and more efficient logistics are very important to industries of all kinds today. But reliability of supply and precautionary redundancy have prompted firms in industries ranging from basic materials like steel and chemicals to high technology, to establish supply networks across the globe.

Ironically, it’s likely that in going global, companies have not actually decreased their risk profile but actually increased it. Broadening exposures can actually drive total risk higher, either by actual exposure to new perils or simply by making existing risks more difficult to quantify or manage.

That is especially true of global supply chains, through which goods or services often come from countries with low per-capita income, weak regulatory control or where the quality of risk management practices—as well as building codes and standards—are weak or nonexistent. In several memorable cases, retail chains and clothing brands have had to respond to fires and collapses of the factories making their garments on the other side of the planet.

Even the industrialized world is not immune to global risks, as was proven by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. Automobiles, car parts, electronics, and many other sectors saw their supply chains disrupted for weeks or even months, prompting them afterward to geographically diversify their sourcing, production and inventory.

What is the most crucial goal for supply chains in your opinion? Share with us in the comment below or send us message for discussion. Subscribe now to get updates in your inbox.

 

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Step by Step Supply Chain Risk Management

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Supply Chain Risk Management Step by Step

Managing risk in the supply chain can be a daunting task. Supply chain managers increasingly realize that protecting their supply chains from serious and costly disruptions. But often they don’t take action, because they are paralyzed by not really knowing how to start.

Zurich’s 2014 Supply Chain Resilience Survey puts some figures on the problem:

  • 73.5% of organizations surveyed said they do not have full visibility into their supply chains.
  • 76% of respondents reported at least one instance of supply chain disruption last year.
  • 44.4% of disruptions originate below Tier 1 suppliers.
  • Loss of productivity (58.5%), increased cost of working (47.5%), and loss of revenue (44.7%) were the most commonly reported consequences of supply chain disruptions.
  • 28.6% reported low mangement commitment to the issue of supply chain resilience.

Taking a step-by-step approach can help. Solid planning, carefully planned and executed, not only reduces risk but also can increase supply chain efficiency, enhancing the organization’s bottom line.

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5 Solutions For Supply Chain EHS Performance Neglect

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5 Solutions For Supply Chain EHS Performance Neglect

The need to manage environment, health and safety (EHS) performance across our organizations and throughout our global plants has never been more apparent. While considerations of EHS performance were once limited to one organization’s performance within its four walls, things have changed. The increased reliance on supply chains extending across the globe, the visibility and traction afforded by online communications and social media, and the growing need to improve and report on end-to-end sustainability performance are compelling businesses to account for EHS performance across their supply chain.

As EHS regulations and best practices become more comprehensive and expansive, we’re seeing a new imperative in managing EHS supply chain performance. No longer is it acceptable to simply manage EHS performance within your own organization. And a number of high-profile examples in recent years have helped illustrate this trend. However, many global manufacturers are still grappling with how to extend EHS performance visibility beyond their organization and across their supply chain.

Five Ways to Improve and Integrate Supplier Performance

So, how do we proactively account for the possibility such adverse events will arise? We need to extend EHS capabilities across our supply chains.

1. Implement progressive policies that extend across the supply chain

As a global manufacturer, you may be dealing with a wide range of different levels of EHS regulations across various regions and jurisdictions around the globe.

2. Appoint an EHS and/or sustainability champion

Just as an internal EHS executive would champion exemplary EHS and sustainability performance within his or her own organization, this individual also ought to be afforded the power to apply similar requirements and accountability mechanisms across the supply chain.

3. Build a robust supplier EHS review process

Reviewing supplier EHS performance is not a new thing, but it tends to take a back seat to managing EHS performance internally.

4. Extend risk management capabilities across the supply chain

If you have risk-based capabilities built into your internal EHS performance programs, consider extending the risk frameworks you apply internally across your supply chain.

5. Drop suppliers that underperform

It’s tough medicine, but just as executives boot key members of their leadership team when a scandal arises or when systematic deficiencies persist, making an example of suppliers that underperform on the EHS front will show you’re serious about EHS

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Counter-measure Offers Cyber Protection for Supply Chains

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Counter-measure Offers Cyber Protection for Supply Chains

The supply chain is ground zero for several recent cyber breaches. Hackers, for example, prey on vendors that have remote access to a larger company’s global IT systems, software and networks. In the 2013 Target breach, the attacker infiltrated a vulnerable link: a refrigeration system supplier connected to the retailer’s IT system.

A counter-measure, via a user-ready online portal, has been developed by researchers in the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The CyberChain portal is based on a new management science called “cyber supply chain risk management.” It combines conventionally-separate disciplines cybersecurity, enterprise risk management and supply chain management.

Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the UMD researchers developed the formula, in part, after surveying 200 different-sized companies in various industries.

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Companies need to realise the benefit of supply chains, says Professor Jan Godsell

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Companies need to realise the benefit of supply chains, says Professor Jan Godsell

We are all more involved in the supply chain industry than we might think. The products we buy and the places we work can all have some sort of impact on supply chains. We all contribute in some way, and in order to develop good practices in supply chains it has to start with leadership at the top.

Dr Jan Godsell, pictured, professor of operations and supply chain strategy at WMG, University of Warwick, is an expert in this field and has developed supply chain strategies in a number of FTSE 100 companies. She recently spoke at Business Reporter’s Supply Fest 2014 event on how to strategically align your business to get the best results in your supply chain.

“In the UK we talk about the economy being service orientated,” she tells us when we catch up with her post-summit. “People do not realise 80 per cent of our population work in the supply chain. Whether you are a farmer producing food or you work in a factory, have a lorry that moves the food or you’re working in a store to distribute it, that is all helping to feed the nation. Supply chains have an omnipresence that people do not realise.

“The more we can do to help raise the visibility of supply chains and help people understand how they contribute to that positively – not just to the UK economy, but also the European and global economies. That will really help to inspire people to work within it.”

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