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A New Red Wagon?

Supply Chain Shaman

Last week, I spent time with large chemical companies engrossed in this discussion. Let’s take a look at the world of the chemical manufacturer. As shown in Figure 1, the company has been unable to maintain balance on the portfolio of cost and inventory. Acquisitions drove DOW Chemical’s wide swings.

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Asking the Right Questions Is The First Step To Drive Supply Chain Excellence

Supply Chain Shaman

Using balance sheet data from 2011 to 2019, we chart companies’ progress by peer group on rate of improvement and performance in the metrics of growth, operating margin, inventory turns, and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). Last week, I shared a preview of the results through a webinar broadcast.

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Why I No Longer Believe in the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25

Supply Chain Shaman

The research tries to establish “ who did supply chain best ” by looking at a weighted formula of Year-over-Year Growth, Return on Assets (ROA), and Inventory Turns for the Fortune 500 companies. Inventory Turns values are based on an average of quarterly reporting for the past year. Inventory Turns is only part of the story.

Gartner 248
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Conquering the Effective Frontier

Supply Chain Shaman

Complexity has risen and progress on margin and inventory is stalled. Attending the conference, and making improvement in both inventory cycles and operating margin for two consecutive years, are Colgate, Dow Chemical, and General Mills. We will be sharing these insights on our upcoming webinar that will happen post-conference.

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Elevating The Voice of the Supply Chain Contrarian

Supply Chain Shaman

Due to travel restrictions, I cannot attend many industry events, so I observe from home, watching webinars and remote broadcasts. We find that the companies with the most marked improvement in a balanced scorecard of growth, inventory turns, operating margin, and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) are smaller and less well-known.

Gartner 334
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How Do We Heal the Healthcare Value Network?

Supply Chain Shaman

Last week, at Supply Chain Insights , as part of our monthly webinar series, I hosted a panel discussion on the current state of the healthcare value network. Hosting this webinar series is one of the favorite parts of my job as the Founder of Supply Chain Insights. It is rising inventory levels. Current State: Costs are rising.

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Parts Are Not Parts

Supply Chain Shaman

Today, over 90% of companies have deployed ERP and APS, but as shown in Table 1, inventory levels have grown not decreased in over 80% of industries studied. And, while inventories in automotive have decreased slightly, this progress is primarily due to the shifting of inventory back to suppliers versus overall value chain improvement.