Resilient Supply Chains are now a Competitive Advantage We just got through the biggest health and supply chain disruption since WW2. As we move through the pandemic, the global Supply Chain is struggling to recover. Companies are challenged with limited raw material availability, extended lead times and transportation delays. Their competitors, that have been able… 
Business-To-Consumer (B2C) Consumer choice is the subject of many studies. Should a company extend its product line or stay focused? How does this affect physical distribution, in either ecommerce warehouses or retail stores? Retail stores are fixed with limited shelf space and almost no potential to expand. Warehouses can be expanded, but at a cost. …
Sales & Operation Planning (S&OP) is a process to make sure sales, finance, operations and supply chain are aligned, so customer service and profit are maximized. When done well, S&OP allows business to capture efficiencies because it can proactively adjust sales, operations and supply chain as forecasts change. However, this value is only captured when the company…
Navigating various sales channels, inventory, and pricing exposure when Amazon makes the rules Amazon is a behemoth in B2C distribution, and is growing their B2B business. If you compete in this space, then you have experienced their wake or could soon. Trying to fight or beat Amazon is likely a losing battle. But there are…
Pricing can have a dramatic impact on the bottom line extremely quickly, probably more quickly than any other business initiative. Our method uses data analytics to identify value-levers for customizing pricing. These dramatic improvements do not come easy, they require putting resources on pricing analytics in-line with the value it can deliver. Here’s an example of…
Omnichannel is a supply chain order fulfillment system that uses all of the assets in the supply chain (stores, warehouses, return-centers, trucks, drones) to fulfill your order quickly and at the lowest cost. Stores Matter In an omnichannel, stores matter. Having physical retail stores is a way to increase sales… yes increase sales. Not everyone,…
Understanding How Forecasts Help your Business</strong Using the simple, but effective Dupont Return on Capital Model, we can see what can happen with more accurate forecasts. Profit = Sales – Costs Return on Invested Capital = Profit / Invested Capital Improving forecasts increase fulfilled sales and therefore profit at lower investment capital It is Hard…
For those of you who have used but dropped S&OP or if you not familiar with the term, it would be best described as “Executing your Sales & Operations Plan.” If you are having problems turning your sales plan into a reality because operations, sales and finance are not aligned, then you need to consider…
Inventory Metrics for the New World Historically, companies that shipped product from finished goods inventory such as distributors and e-commerce companies, for their inventory performance measures (related to customer-service) used fill rate. Unit fill rate = units shipped / units ordered Line fill rate = number of lines on an order filled complete / total…
The challenge in retail is summed up in one word, e-commerce. Retailers spent decades creating low-cost supply chains to serve customers from bricks-and-mortar stores and the replenishment systems to keep stores stocked with the right inventory. However, with the advent of e-commerce these systems are not sufficient to be successful. Even the smallest retailers are selling products from…
Often companies rate their customers simply by revenue or unit volume and fail to recognize gross profit margin, maintenance cost and other strategic factors. This can result in an incorrect perception of which customers are the highest performers and most important to the company. Supply Velocity uses a new Business Intelligence System, Customer Optimization, and a new metric,…
Processes are the heart of every company or organization, but as companies, products and marketplaces became more complex, the demands and expectations of processes become greater and they often fail to effectively meet the company’s or the customers’ needs and objectives. Inefficient business processes can have 5 times the negative impact on the customer over…
Product development can include hard-goods, software or new services, and few processes involve as many different departments within a company as product development. As the development effort crosses between departments such as marketing, research, engineering, purchasing, operations and sales there are numerous opportunities for the effort to stall or even reverse direction. This can be…
In November we held a Process Improvement Forum for our Clients at Impact Group. These Forums are a chance for our Clients to learn from each other. Impact Group’s trained coaches and research team works to solve the myriad of problems a relocating family can face. We thought Impact would be a great host because…
Thanks to our friends at MiTek, more than 20 of Supply Velocity’s client-companies were able to send representatives to see how MiTek is using lean tools to increase their capacity, ensure on-time delivery, and improve financial performance. On 9 October, Greg Pritchett and his team hosted nearly 50 current and past customers of Supply Velocity. …
July 10th I presented “What is new in Lean” for the Midwest Manufacturing Leaders. 100 people heard me discuss taking Lean beyond the facility and making your supply chain Lean. My co-presenter was Ray Keefe, recently retired Executive Vice President of Manufacturing for Emerson. If you would like a copy of this presentation send me…
Some common themes we observe or hear from clients and prospective clients about their company: a lack of accountability for results organizational responsibility and ownership is not well defined poor communications; there are often department silos or walls that reduce communication departments are not aligned throughout the organization goals and objectives are poorly defined or…
I am working at a defense contractor Client, streamlining their supply chain management processes. We will definitely do a e-newsletter on this project. The team identified 46,000 hours per year of wasted steps. The future state completely changed their planning and purchasing processes. We are working with them now on their proposal development and program…
Ray is working with a Defense Contractor on creating company-wide Performance Scorecards.
Mitch is working with a Grocery Retail & Distribution Company, teaching a select group of associates to be Lean Six Sigma Champions.
Strategic Tradeoffs in Operations Don’t Exist In an important paper written in the Harvard Business Review, Skinner (1969) stated that in operations you must make tradeoffs between quality, delivery, flexibility and cost. In other words, you cannot have it all. Academic researchers jumped on this idea and conducted many surveys of companies around the world…
Link to Additional Details Download “Important Quantitative Supply Chain Decisions” here. We decided to call this “Quantitative” Supply Chain Decisions, but we could have called it Logistics Decisions. Logistics can be described as the supply chain within a firm, encompassing the more quantitative decisions. We will provide an overview of these decisions. For more details…
Link to Additional Details Download “Supply Chain Operations Reference Model” here. You may be wondering, “What is an operations reference?” SCOR is a process model, and separately, but related, a measurement model. Process Model As a process model it follows the supply chain through five functional areas. These are called the Level 1 processes. Plan…
Link to the White-Paper Designing Your Global Supply Chain In the 1990’s, and with the rise of the concept of Supply Chain Management, supply chains have gone global. Creating a global supply chain forced companies to consider the strategic choices they made when designing their supply chain. Globalization has included suppliers in many different countries,…
Link to the White-Paper The Ideal Lean Assessment Scorecard The Ideal Lean Process All employees show up to work every day, are motivated, can work at any operation and are constantly looking for ways to improve processes Supplies can be ordered and delivered immediately, in whatever quantities are needed and are defect free Equipment never…
I just finished work with a Client on creating a Direct Labor Performance Incentive. I may present more on this later in the year. I wanted to draw attention to the top of the photo. You may be able to make out one of the greatest quotes ever, from the founder of this company,…
Recently I held a Process Improvement Forum at Weekends Only; a furniture store Client with 5 stores in the St. Louis area. Last year we used Lean Six Sigma to improve the process of picking furniture for customer pick up. See the testimonial below from Weekends Only’s COO for results. During the Forum they highlighted…
Mitch is working with Diane, the Ops Manager of a Furniture Retailer, time studying the order fulfillment process. It is hard to see, but the order-selector is down the aisle on a forktruck getting a sofa.
Ray is working with a Defense Contractor on creating company-wide Performance Scorecards.
Mitch is working with a Grocery Retail & Distribution Company, teaching a select group of associates to be Lean Six Sigma Champions