For the past five years, the team at Supply Chain Insights identified Supply Chains to Admire Award Winners by analyzing performance by peer group on the key metrics of growth, operating margin, inventory turns and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). In 2018, Rockwell Automation won the Supply Chains to Admire Award. To understand the journey, we interviewed Ernest Nicolas, head of the global supply chain at Rockwell to gain insights. In…
Feasibility (noun): The state or degree of being easily or conveniently done. (Oxford Dictionary) In the 1990s supply chain planning was over-hyped. Then it was a new and promising technology category. The ride was wild and wooly. Hype ruled. A decade later, as companies added planners expecting dramatic improvements, the market entered the trough of disillusionment. The promise was not equal to reality. As a result, software sales slowed. The…
Last week, I spoke at the CPHA supply chain conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (This was the inaugural supply chain event for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. Checkout the presentation posted on slideshare.) During the presentation, I spoke about the future of supply chain management, and the building of outside-in processes. In my discussion, I used the chart in Figure 1. Figure 1. Shifts in Traditional Supply Chain Processes in the…
E2open is acquiring INTTRA pending federal approval. Is this a knot to be tied? Does this deserve congratulations or concern? Here I share some thoughts. Reflections Three decades ago, I was sitting on a hotel bed with my friend Ellen Chen. Ellen currently works as a consultant at Cap Gemini. I consider her the best in the biz for transportation management consulting. At the time, we were both deployed as…
I remember the call like it was yesterday. Four years have passed. On this cold day, I would like to walk on the beach with my friend Maddy. She is there. I am not. Let me tell you the story. In 2014, while sipping on an early morning coffee, Maddy called to ask me a question. It sounded simple, but she was frantic. Working for a large manufacturer, she was trying…
François-Régis Le Tourneau leads the efforts at L’Oreal for Standards & Prospective Process Improvement. At the Supply Chain Global Summit 2018, Francois discussed the impact of digitalization, Industry 4.0, and L’Oréal’s approach to business that has allowed the company to continuously rank as a Supply Chains to Admire winner for four consecutive years. The award, based on beating the industry peer group on rate of improvement on the key metrics of…
90, then 80, followed by 76. The highway rolls ahead of me. There are endless mile markers. It is a long day. Today, I am cruising major freeways traveling from Chicago to my new home in Pennsylvania. Against my friends’ advice, I decided to drive to speak to 120 business leaders at the GAINSystems event. The rain delays through the summer soured me on air travel. The sun is shining….
Yowza: Excitement or approval Get a cup of coffee. This is a long post. <Bear with me….> Here I share a nine-step process in an attempt to help companies unravel the process for buying supply chain planning software. The genesis for this post stems from frustration. I get the same questions over-and-over again, and see companies making the same mistakes. Let’s face a hard fact: the supply chain planning market…
There are over 10,000 change management books on Amazon. The return of search on the site gives a list of endless titles. You might ask, “Why are so many people writing about change management?” Followed by, “Does anyone read the books? Why then is Lora writing about it?” These are all good questions. Background Three weeks ago, I attempted to put my life back together from a recent move. Each…
This morning the Washington Post rang. The reporter wanted to discuss the implications of Hurricane Florence. The question was simple, “What will be the impact of Hurricane Florence on the supply chain?” The answer is not so easy. The implications are far-reaching. Quite simply no one knows. North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia sit squarely in the storm’s path. Each state has a rich manufacturing economy. The supply chain…
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