This week I spoke at an SAS Global Analytics Summit on the connected supply chain. In my view, the connected supply chain is very, very different from the integrated supply chain. Here, in this blog post, I want to provoke teams to think through the differences, and really question what they are asking for. Some History In 2002 I worked for Gartner Group in the business applications practice. This was in…
Cloud. Descriptive analytics. Prescriptive analytics. Machine learning. Collaborative workflow. What-if analysis. I find, as I attend conferences, that the word ‘planning’ is bandied about, but few technologists dive into the details. We have lost the ability to have a discussion on the fundamentals. It drives a supply chain planning gal like me crazy. Here I share some insights on planning. For everyone trying to navigate new technology options, this is an…
Recently, I spoke on the future of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee Supply Chain Forum. At the end of the presentation, Ed Hamlin of Logility stopped me and engaged me in a conversation on a recent Logility implementation at Glen Raven. He was proud of the implementation and asked if I had heard of Glen Raven. As he talked, I smiled. I find Glen Raven to be…
Mine sweeping is essential to warfare. Soldiers use special devices to detect underground mines and disarm them, keeping them from exploding before they cause harm. At Supply Chain Insights we have been actively working on our own mine sweeping project. Over the course of the last quarter, with help from Cloudera, we built a data lake with information from 1449 public companies (these are mainly North American-based manufacturers, distributors…
Let me start this blog post with a story. I believe that supply chains build economies and save the planet. It is about value creation. I also believe that finance is the art of money changing hands until there is nothing left. Supply chain processes and financial flows often run in counter currents. Two years ago I completed a research study on supply chain visibility. When the report published it…
Supply chain excellence. It is easier to say than define. Getting it clear is important. Why? The answer makes or breaks a supply chain leader’s career and defines corporate value. Let’s take an example. When we look at the relative progress of industries within the Technology Value Networks in Table 1, you see a lot of red. The first number in a cell represents the average value for a specific…
Imagine driving down a dusty road for years. One without any towns, road signs, billboards, or rest stops. Sounds boring, right? I agree. This is the world of the supply chain leader driving process improvement. The road to supply chain excellence takes time and patience. There are no clear landmarks or directional signage. Today, in organizations, there is a large gap between technology and process effectiveness. Here we examine some…
Timeless: not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion. Last week I was on vacation in the Caribbean. I moved on island time. It is a slower, more relaxed pace. In the process, I thought a lot about the concept of time and how it affects our daily lives. Supply chains are anything but timeless. At a company, individuals define supply chain excellence based upon their own purview…
BASF creates chemistry. Over the last two decades the company successfully leveraged global scale to define supply chain leadership. With 12,000 supply chain employees operating in 80 countries with 2400 storage facilities, supply chain excellence and innovation are the foundation of corporate performance. The work of the BASF leadership team is a success story in managing global complexity. For this case study we interviewed Ralf Busche, Senior Vice President of…
This morning E2open announced the acquisition of Steelwedge for an undisclosed sum of money. Founded in 2000, Steelwedge was an innovator in Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and was an early provider of cloud solutions for supply chain. I estimate that the company had annual sales of 30M$. Clients include Canon, Pfizer, HP Inc, Jaguar Land Rover, Lenovo, Nissan and Monsanto. When E2open called to tell me of the acquisition, they…
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