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Beware the Swinging Pendulum on Supply Chain Inventory Practices

Logistics Viewpoints

Supply shortages resulting in empty shelves or parking lots of WIP inventory represent a spectre causing supply chain leaders to reconsider supply chain inventory practices. Opinion of just-in-time (JIT) as a practice has taken a battering and inventory is rising. Is supply chain inventory the problem?

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What Lessons a Table Fable Teaches About Supply Chain Orchestration

Logistics Viewpoints

The issue wasn’t poor planning – they had the inventory. Multiple calls only muddied the waters, but a few things became clear: inventory was in the warehouse, but my order for it was stuck. Once a return was triggered in the system, information flows failed. In February 2022 I ordered a lovely midcentury modern table.

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What is Supply Chain Visibility and Why Isn’t It Enough?

Logistics Viewpoints

With this information, are you any closer to knowing what to do about it, or have you just enriched your ability to admire your problem and see it close up? Achieving their goal of no stockouts is impressive, but that they did so without significant buffering with inventory is a testament to the combination of transparency and agility.

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The Greenest Mile: Planning’s Role in Supply Chain Sustainability

Logistics Viewpoints

Information trade-offs made to absorb unpredictable volatility force supply chains to buffer. Siloed planning, information latency, disconnected processes, and lack of transparency all illustrate problems with poor information. Buffering creates waste. Proper disposal can cause downstream issues.

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Better Ways to Address Trade-Offs with Supply Chain Optimization

Logistics Viewpoints

Malcolm McLean, a trucker from North Carolina, was tired of waiting. Imagine you are a high-tech manufacturer with more inventory in stock than your forecasted production volume, which puts you in good company, since US manufacturers’ inventories continue to rise. Now that’s an ROI!

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Wake-Call for Added Resiliency Within Healthcare Supply Networks

Supply Chain Matters

Supply Chain Matters provides added information and perspectives related to last week’s natural disaster involving a U.S. Background On July 19, a devastating tornado with reported winds of upwards of 150 miles-per-hour devastated an area in eastern North Carolina. Pfizer drug manufacturing facility. and other countries.

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The Promise and Peril of Generative AI for Supply Chains

Logistics Viewpoints

Supply chains are rife with uncertainty and silos, but instead of producing useless forecasts or buffering with inventory , we can also adopt best practices like concurrent planning. What I do know best is that guiding a supply chain in the age of AI requires three leadership skills, all of which are uniquely human.