This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
To build an outside-in model, and use new forms of analytics, we must start the discussion with the question of, “what drives value?” ” Traditional planning models optimize functional processes to improve cost and customer service. You are right. What should we do? What should be on the scorecard?
Optimizing fulfillment requires a series of steps to get a shipment from its source to the end customer. These steps include sourcing and receiving inventory, storing inventory, order processing, picking and packing an order, shipping the order, and returns management.
Supply chain efficiency is the cornerstone of success and involves the effective management of processes, resources, and technologies from procurement to production, transportation to warehousing. In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducing inventory costs and delivery times.
Procurement and supply chain management are often used interchangeably—but in practice, the lines between them can blur in ways that create real friction. Misaligned priorities, siloed systems, and unclear ownership can directly impact key performance indicators like cost savings percentage and procurement cycle time.
Strategic sourcing and innovative solutions are often viewed as two distinct procurement tools, but they should not be seen in isolation. Think of them as apples and gearseach essential and effective on its own, yet when combined; they create a formidable mechanism for achieving procurement excellence.
If you’re evaluating procurement technology or exploring ways to drive more value from existing systems, chances are you’re looking beyond tactical fixes – you want a smarter, scalable strategy. Misaligned priorities across finance, legal, and procurement create friction that delays decision-making and reduces impact.
Procurement and Supply Chain Management are essential functions that can help companies navigate these challenges, but they are often siloed and operate in separate departments. Their metrics are often misaligned as well – supply chain focuses on service and procurement focuses on the cost of acquiring materials and services.
It is crucial for organizations to understand the importance of Purchase Order collaboration to effectively manage their direct spend, optimize operations, and mitigate risks. Criticality of PO Collaboration for Direct Spend Management PO collaboration plays a pivotal role in managing direct spend efficiently.
In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Supply chain was defined in 1982 as interoperability between source, make and deliver. Ask a procurement or transportation professional if they have a good demand signal and expect a laugh.
Ivalua Spend Management Insights [ivory-search] 3 Powerful Ways Procurement will Drive the 2030 Saudi Vision Transformation May 30, 2023 | | ProcurementStrategy by Sara Omer What is the Saudi Vision 2030 Program? Procurement and supply chain teams will play a crucial role in making this vision a reality.
What Is Strategic Sourcing? A Complete Guide Strategic sourcing is a data-driven approach to securing the best value for your organization from its strategic suppliers. It is called strategic because it replaces traditional ad hoc approaches to sourcing, which were almost entirely focused on cost savings, item by item.
In the age of same-day delivery and rising consumer expectations, there is immense pressure on warehouses to perform at peak efficiency. But between rising costs, complex logistics, and the constant struggle to optimize space and labor, staying ahead can feel like an uphill battle. That’s where warehouse optimization comes in.
When reviewing strategy decks for supply chain teams, I often see statements like “move from a functional-silo’d focus to a drive a more holistic response.” ” Or “push a shift from a focus on cost to drive value?” Functional Metrics. ” Sound familiar? Organizational Alignment 2012.
In a previous post , I made a case for how the Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) and Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) are smarter together. Accordingly Supply Chain and Procurement will need continuous collaboration. Such sourcing events can be in the context of direct materials or logistics capacity.
Introduction Gardner, (1954) and Huntzinger, (2007) define Purchase price variance (PPV) as a metric used to measure the effectiveness of cost-saving efforts by calculating the difference between the planned cost (standard pricing) allocated for purchasing activities and the actual cost incurred.
GEP and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Supply Chain Resource Cooperative surveyed supply chain, procurement and IT professionals across a range of industries to gain insight into their priorities and strategies regarding supply chain resilience and optimization. Alex Zhong, Director Product Marketing at GEP.
In today’s dynamic market, procurement is far more than just a buying and purchasing center. Forward-thinking organizations have transformed the department into an untapped gold mine that creates value for the entire end-to-end manufacturing process—from design and sourcing to production and delivery.
How MES is Shaping the Future of Manufacturing and Boosting Production Efficiency What is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES)? An MES provides a functional layer between enterprise resource planning (ERP) and process control systems, giving decision-makers the data they need to make their production area more efficient.
At each company, there is a relationship between the metrics of growth, margin, inventory, customer service, and asset strategy. For the purpose of this article, I will use Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) as the proxy metric to discuss asset utilization.) Understanding this relationship requires modeling. (A
Since January, Canadians’ weekly grocery trips have become a real-time indicator for the potential impacts of tariffs as shoppers have responded to threats with a showcase of buying power, prioritizing nationally sourced and manufactured products even before a single tariff was enacted.
How AI is Transforming Manufacturing: Strategies, Benefits, and Use Cases Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a huge topic and one that is constantly changing as research and development efforts push out the boundaries of whats possibleand whats already happening! Manufacturers now generate and own vast volumes of it.
All metal fabricators realize that they have to do some analyses before the company purchases equipmen t or hires new people, but now there seems to be a new intensity about the process. Now is the Time for Manufacturing to Look at Logistics Efficiency. The keyword here is fast. That’s a delta of 5% to 7%.
Globally ten percent of jobs are in manufacturing, while 37% are associated with supply chain management. The discipline, first defined in 1982, includes source, make, deliver, and planning functions. One of my favorite supply chain leaders has a stack of Palantir reports in black binders on his desk. Reflection. Let me explain.
“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. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.”
PwC reports that almost half of assets under management are held by investment firms committed to decarbonization. It was a rude surprise when I learned it would cost $100 to fill the tank. I was drawn to Hunter and Amory Lovins, who advocated a strategy pairing energy efficiency with renewables, long before its current popularity.
Over the years, cost and efficiency ruled the supply chain agenda. At the same time, the Chief Purchasing Officer (CPO) has taken on a pivotal role by securing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect the workforce and direct materials when primary sources fail.
Analytics and business intelligence (BI) are no longer optionaltheyre essential. They need visibility across multiple internal systemslike ERP, CRM, and financial platformsand even external sources shared with suppliers, partners, and customers. Think of it as the central nervous system of your analytics ecosystem.
Insights from a Former Procurement Manager People often ask me why I left FORVIA, a French global automotive supplier, to join QAD. In todays fast-paced business environment, digitalization has become a cornerstone of operational success, particularly in the realm of purchasing.
Global supply chain disruptions continue to derail manufacturers in the high-tech, automotive, and renewable energy sectors as they grapple with long lead times, higher prices, and electronic component shortages. To mitigate risks, many companies are incorporating alternate parts into their sourcingstrategy.
Automotive distributors play a vital role in the automotive supply chain by procuring parts, warehousing them, and then supplying them to OEMs (original equipment manufacturer), retailers or end consumers. Using a supplier portal, distributors can mitigate these risks by quickly checking where alternative parts can be sourced.
Below are the individual web links and prime takeaway messages from each of our prior postings: Part One : Michael observed that standard sourcing solutions struggle to support direct materials sourcing because of specific challenges in legacy software design.
Primed for transactional efficiency, these legacy architectures based on relational databases drive order-to-cash and procure-to-pay efficiencies. Current Familiarity with Analytic Concepts (Fall 2022 Snapshot) Preamble Supply chain leaders love their rows and columns. I term this our data jail. The So What And Who Cares?
Businesses often use it in retail and purchasing. Category management isn’t just another procurement trend. It’s a way for companies to group similar goods or services (like IT infrastructure, facilities, or raw materials) and manage them holistically instead of handling every purchase in isolation.
This shift has pushed supply chain leadership to pivot from reactive management to proactive strategy built on data. The New Supply Chain Imperative Gone are the days when efficiency alone drove success. Analytics allows organizations to move beyond intuition. Prescriptive analytics tells them what to do about it.
The past few years have created a lasting impact on the way business is conducted, driving many companies to analytics to gain the visibility they need to control and optimize key processes. The Basics of Procurement KPIs. There must be a clearly defined data source with a standardized process for collecting and measuring that data.
Ivalua Blog [ivory-search] Weathering Future Disruptions: 8 Steps to Building Supply Chain Resilience February 8, 2023 | | Manufacturing by Doug Keeley In the face of an unprecedented global crisis, Procurement stepped up to become a crucial driving force for business continuity. Work to achieve 100% supply chain visibility.
I would like for us to move past the conventional view of sourcingstrategies and globalization to drive improvements to the supply chain in a variable world. The populist narrative of sourcing globalization is only part of the story. Too few are questioning the products that should have never been manufactured.
The perspective of a manufacturing leader is quite different than that of a business leader in logistics. On the technology front, optimization is deeper, and the evolution of artificial intelligence enables more flexible sensing and modeling. As shown in Figure 1, the reporting relationships vary. “ Reflection.
The stakes have never been higher: unplanned downtime due to unavailable parts can cost organizations thousands of dollars per minute, erode customer trust, and disrupt critical operations. These factors create a dynamic environment where MRO and maintenance professionals must adapt quickly to maintain efficiency and control costs.
For companies that want to go beyond the traditional spreadsheet, which cannot handle this ocean of information efficiently, statistical methods such as cluster analysis can help. There is so much data, and to make use of it, we need to use data mining and analytics to drive meaningful insights that can be put to some good use.
For 58 years, food and beverage and consumer goods manufacturers have battled for dominance, from chips and wings to soda, beer, party supplies, and even aluminum foil for food storage and DIY trophies. Manufacturers that dont plan ahead will lose the game. That takes a data-driven approach to forecasting, procurement and distribution.
Table of Contents ** Minutes What is product sourcing? Where can I source products from? This makes it essential that buyers understand where they are sourcing their products from and how that ultimately affects their brand. What is product sourcing? Where can I source products from?
Inventory is the lifeblood of any manufacturing business. Get it right, and youve got happy customers and streamlined costs. Striking the perfect balance between available stock and costefficiency is key. Get it wrong, and you risk financial strain and fulfillment headaches. But what exactly should you measure?
A combo of pandemic-related increased demand, and the tragic destruction of a key chlorine manufacturer have led to 2022’s swimming pool chlorine shortage. Image source: Cape Analytics. Image Source: Nola. Image Source: USA Today. Image source: CNBC. The cause of this tragedy? between 2021 and 2026.The
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 102,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content