5 levers of Supply Chain

FIVE OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY LEVERS
A recent survey indicates that flexible organisations focus on i) supply assurance and proactively managing capacity, especially of critical resources; ii) relentlessly engaging in supply chain planning with upstream and downstream partners, in a continuous improvement loop; iii) further integrating their supply chain and aligning their performance metrics with those partners, so all participants speak the same language; iv) better involving product development into supply chain management and breaking down silos; and lastly, v) striving for flexibility in all functions of the company, making it a part of the company’s DNA and easier for supply chain practitioners to implement it.
SUPPLY CHAIN FLEXIBILITY
We prefer to call it operational flexibility because it goes beyond the supply chain and involves the entire supply and demand chain, from product launch to end-of-life management. Operational flexibility is the ability to rapidly adapt to changes in supply or customer demand by ramping up or down internal and partner operations. A company is flexible when it is able to keep customer lead times stable, despite demand spikes and supply disruptions without resorting to constant “firefighting.” Lastly, it does not mean recovery after “black swans”, or extraordinary one-time events, such as the 2011 Japanese earthquake – those are beyond the scope of steady-state operational flexibility and are best addressed by a sound business continuity and crisis readiness strategy.
REQUIREMENT FOR GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTIVES
True operational flexibility is a strategic objective, because it directly impacts customers and involves top-level planning; so it fits naturally on the executive agenda. It also reflects the fact that volatility has become the norm. Economic, business, political and even geological factors have led to unprecedented uncertainty both at the supply and demand ends of the supply chain. Flexibility is not just a source of competitive advantage anymore, but fundamental to staying in business, significantly impacting both the top and bottom line.
To find the best in fexible Supply Chain professionals go to www.redimo.co.uk
Julian

Renewable Energy - The potential saviour?

I read an interesting story on Supplymanagement.com earlier, apparently only 19% of UK manufacturers expect to lower their prices in the next quarter due to a healthy demand. Interestingly 31 per cent of manufacturers predicted production would rise over the next quarter with 52 per cent believing it will stay the same, and just 17 per cent predicting a fall.

All in all that's great news for the UK economy, Britian was once the great manufacturing empire and although low cost sourcing has made it cheaper to move production abroad I can't help feeling that as long as our manufacturing industry continues to grow we should ride out the rest of 2011 nicely.

On a different note the renewable energy industry seems to have slowed down in the recession with a couple of the big wind turbine manufacturers making redundancies in the past 2 years, speaking to a well placed insider last week I was pleased to hear that the UK could become the wind energy capital of the world. All we need now is significant investment from the government and we can put the great back in to Britain!

We do most of our business in the manufacturing industry across all sectors so please visit our website (www.redimo.co.uk) to find Supply Chain positions with a selection of great companies.

James