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Supply Visibility: More Important Than Ever. Yet Elusive.

Supply Chain Shaman

In 2004, I joined AMR Research, a Boston Analyst firm. Too few companies have a holistic approach to embrace the plan, make, source, and deliver together. The problem with supplier visibility is bookended into procurement processes that have gone back, not forward over the last decade. Reflection. I thought it would be easy.

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A Story of Throwing the Baby Out With The Bathwater in Supply Chain Planning

Supply Chain Shaman

In 2004, I worked with a Midwest North American meatpacker to help define its supply chain strategy. Consumers constantly change the mix preferences in purchases. Somedays, the focus is on steaks or ribs and the next on the purchase of ground or cubed meat. What do I mean? To illustrate, let me share a story.

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Visibility: If Only I Could See

Supply Chain Shaman

In 2004-2006, Greg Aimi (now a Gartner analyst) and I worked on a common definition of visibility for over a year. This team was working on quality improvements and found that the flows crossed 117 disconnected documents in access, excel, and google analytics. These sources while functional are difficult to connect.

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Untangling The Tangled Web We Weave

Supply Chain Shaman

The year was 2004. Was it that Kraft was not clear in its definition of supply chain excellence (which was true) or not clear on how to best use the system (which was also true)? When I walk into a room at most Fortune 500 manufacturers, I am amazed at the loss of collective understanding of the principles of supply chain planning.

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7 Trending Business Practices Disrupting Procurement!

Supply Chain Game Changer

7 KPIs Your Procurement Team May Be Ignoring! Days and years went by, and eventually, the ’93 Ford Escort was living in the hybrid-dominated world of the year 2004. But, when my mom was buying a new vehicle, she didn’t decide to scrap the vehicle from 1993 and purchase one from 1995. Responsible Sourcing.

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Collaboration? When It Comes to Cash-to-Cash, We Don’t Know How to Walk the Talk

Supply Chain Shaman

Note the elongation of the cash-to-cash cycle in the chemical industry of 38 additional days when comparing the 2014-2019 averages to the pre-recession period of 2004-2006. While touted as a digital procurement provider, it took the Company nine days to onboard me as a vendor, and two weeks to process a Purchase Order.

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Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Supply Chain Shaman

Hau L Lee, Triple-A Supply Chains, Harvard Business Review, October 2004. “The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organisation as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. 3) Risky Business?