Tag: supply chain

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News You Can Use: 7/13/2016

sn_tracks_Kaique Rocha

  • The Millennials Balancing Their Parents’ Job Searches With Their Own

    This represents a generational role reversal, prodded perhaps by labor-market forces that favor younger workers over older ones. Although the jobless ratedropped below 5 percent last month, figures specific to older workers tell a different story. A recent study found that 55 percent of Americans over 50 plan to work past the age of 65, primarily because they cannot afford to retire sooner. And, as of December 2014, job-seekers over the age of 55 had been unemployed for an average of 54.3 weeks, nearly twice as long as their younger counterparts.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/the-millennials-balancing-their-parents-job-searches-with-their-own/488621/

  • Applying Supply Chain Management to Deliver Faster with Higher Quality

    DevOps loves Deming… Agile has its roots in Deming, as does Lean, and does DevOps… as does TQM and SixSigma… This is just a fuller embrace of what DevOps already loves in Deming.

    More specifically to development, Lean introduced the 8 types of Waste and culture to manage and reduce waste which comes at the cost of delivering code, delivering value, and pleasing/delighting your customers. Software supply chains introduced an unmeasured – and therefore unmanaged – form of waste. Managing out elective re-work can massively improve developer productivity. A Fortune 100 insurance company achieved a 20% boost in developer productivity in the 1st year.

    For Operations, using higher quality projects can reduce service interruptions – as can avoiding elective attack surface of older and known vulnerable versions of otherwise high quality projects. Further, using fewer total versions of the projects you’ve chosen can reduce operational variance in production – improving quality of service delivered.

    Let’s also not forget that the same choices improve security with fewer incidents due to entirely avoidable, elective risk and attack surface. Further, when unavoidable attacks rear their heads, the tracking of which libraries went where (with versions) enable a significantly faster MTTI/MTTR (Mean-Time-To-Identify and Mean-Time-To-Remediate).

    https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/06/supply-chain-management-DevOps

  • Honeywell acquires Intelligrated for $1.5 billion

    Honeywell International Inc. said today it will acquire material handling automation provider Intelligrated Systems Inc. from its private equity owner for $1.5 billion, triggering a second wave of consolidation in the material-handling sector just two weeks after rival systems integrator Dematic Corp. was sold.

    http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20170701-honeywell-acqiures-intelligrated-for-15-billion-dollars/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS-articles

  • An exclusive look inside Facebook
  • Penn State Is a Key Link in the Supply Chain

    Although the 27-year-old organization is still firmly rooted in traditional aspects of distribution, procurement and transportation, research efforts also focus on newer topics such as demand-driven supply networks, human behavior modeling and low-cost country sourcing.

    http://www.assemblymag.com/articles/93475-penn-state-is-a-key-link-in-the-supply-chain

  • Supply Chain Metric of the Month

    APQC defines procure-to-pay cycle time as the time required in days to pay suppliers, starting from the time that the purchase order is placed until the time that payment is made  to the supplier (e.g. procure-to-pay processing time). As shown in Figure 1, research from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in procurement shows that top performing organizations have shorter procure-to-pay cycle times. Top performers have a procure-to-pay cycle time of two months, whereas bottom performers have a cycle time of about a month and a half. At the median organizations have a cycle time of 25 days to pay suppliers, or 11 days longer than top performers. However, organizations at the median have a procure-to-pay cycle time that is almost 3 week less than bottom performers.

    https://www.apqc.org/blog/chain-supply-chain-content-you-can-use-june-2016

Photo: Kaique Rocha

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News You Can Use: 4/27/2016

sn_mushroom_Aaron Burden

  • Stop Treating Your Employees Like Mushrooms
    What is a “mushroom”?

    You’ve probably heard the expression “feeling like a mushroom,” which is to say feeling kept in the dark, left uninformed and fed a bunch of sh–. Think shittake mushrooms.

    Why is it bad:

    1. 1 in 4 employees surveyed has quit, or knows someone who has quit, due to a lack of transparency and communication in the workplace
    2. Only 10 percent of employees surveyed were aware of their company’s progress in real time.
    3. More than 4 out of 5 employees surveyed wanted to hear more frequently from their bosses about how their company was doing.
    4. More than 90 percent of employees surveyed said they would rather hear bad news than no news.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274279

  • Apple’s organizational cross roads

    Apple employs what is known as a “unitary organizational form” — U-form for short — which is also known as a “functional organization.” In broad strokes, a U-form organization is organized around expertise, not products: in the case of Apple, that means design is one group (under Ive), product marketing is another (under Schiller), and operations a third (under Williams, who is also Chief Operating Officer). Other areas of expertise represented by the members of Apple’s executive team include Software Engineering (Craig Federighi), Hardware Engineering (Dan Riccio), and Hardware Technologies (Johny Srouji).

    What is most striking about that list is what it does not include: the words iPhone, iPad, Mac, orWatch. Apple’s products instead cut across the organization in a way that enforces coordination amongst the various teams.

    https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/

  • Future trends of procurement every customer-centric industry should know

    2) Adopt a Nimble Approach to Strategic Decision Making

    The past complexities of supply chain management resulted in rigid contracts and raised the cost of switching vendors. This concept needs to be replaced with a flexible yet dependable sourcing model that focuses on reducing supplier proximity for enhanced visibility. This less extended approach will condense the product lifecycle and bring the vendors closer to the companies.

    http://www.sourcingfocus.com/site/opinionsitem/future_trends_of_procurement_every_customer-centric_industry_should_kn/

  • Your Office Has Its Own Microbiome, And It Comes From Your Coworkers’ Skin

    The people who inhabit an office have some influence, too. Across all nine offices, human skin bacterial communities “were the largest identifiable source” in the samples. About 25% to 30% of office microbes come from human skin. Even grosser? “The human nasal microbiome also appeared to be a small but consistent source of office surface microbial communities.” (Memo to staff: Stop picking your nose.)

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059111/your-office-has-its-own-microbiome-and-it-comes-from-your-coworkers-skin

  • 4 ways to apply SLAs to shadow IT

    By creating specific SLAs for shadow IT and including these non-IT delivered capabilities in operating level standards, IT can align overall goals and targets with shared objectives, such as 100 percent compliance with change and release management procedures. “For external functions (to the extent possible) align SLAs within underpinning contracts to defined outcomes compatible with SLAs,” advises Wright. “And where SLAs are non-negotiable establish responsibilities and supporting organization objectives or OLAs for shadow and core IT to provide an effective bridge from the non-negotiable SLA to the required outcome.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/3059270/it-industry/4-ways-to-apply-slas-to-shadow-it.html

  • 6 Prophetic Supply Chain Quotable Quotes

    “If you had to wait a week for Google to respond, would you use it?” Dominic Thomas, VP Business Consulting, Kinaxis and Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine 2016 Provider ‘Pro to Know’

    I was fortunate enough to hear Dominic present and when this line came out I committed it to memory. My immediate thought was the supply chain planning community is either extremely patient or has surrendered to Excel and legacy planning systems. This gets back to starting your supply chain conversation. Today asking a supply chain question like, ‘what’s the impact of a 20% demand increase?’ could mean another meeting while those who have to answer try and piece the response together. I didn’t include it as one of the quotes but I once heard a supply chain executive say, “It takes me three weeks to get the wrong answer.” Future supply chain planning processes should no longer include ‘waiting’ as one of the squares on the Visio flowchart.

    http://blog.kinaxis.com/2016/04/6-prophetic-supply-chain-quotable-quotes/

  • How Do Con Artists Fool People? They Listen.

    We tend to think con artists are smooth talkers and persuasive sellers, but listening is their most essential quality, says Maria Konnikova, who has written a new book on con artistry. Here she discusses the case of Victor Lustig, a Frenchman who sold the Eiffel Tower twice for scrap metal to two different buyers. Too embarrassed at being taken in, the buyers never reported Lustig.

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/30/2016

sn_leaves_Scott Webb

  • Design for the Supply Chain Pt 5: Understandable

    I think it’s obvious to all of us that supply chains are continuing to become more and more complex. This is due in part to the ever changing number of nodes/links in the supply chain as companies become more global. That in turn impacts processes (internal and external), interactions with suppliers and customers, focus on metrics and risk analysis, etc. The volume of data necessary to manage these interactions from end-to-end is staggering. We generally create all kinds of reports and applications to sit on top of databases, ERP systems, and spreadsheets to capture the data. The challenge though is not so much how to capture the data but how to get our arms around it in a meaningful way. The goal is to help the supply chain professional understand the situation quicker so they can make better decisions.

    http://blog.kinaxis.com/2016/03/design-for-the-supply-chain-pt-5-understandable/

  • Is It Okay to Cry at Work?

    Personal opinion: Nope nope nope
    http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/474195/is-it-okay-to-cry-at-work/
  • Rewiring the Supply Chain to Improve Results

    Alignment plagues the functional organization with large gaps between operations and commercial teams. Closing this gap is paramount to start the journey for supply chain excellence. As long as we hire consultants that advocate harvesting the “low-hanging fruit” in operations and driving growth in commercial teams, we perpetuate the gap. Instead, we must build operational competency cross-functionally with a focus on market sensing, shaping and customer satisfaction. The supply chain needs to be redefined outside-in with a focus on the customer. Pitting operations and commercial teams against each other is detrimental to driving business results.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/loracecere/2016/03/18/rewiring-the-supply-chain-to-improve-results/#42498dc1c568

  • Four Things To Do When Your Team Is Smarter Than You
    I would think any manager would WANT this…

    PRESENT OBJECTIVES, NOT STRATEGIES
    Throughout his 21-year career, Siegel has managed teams that were filled with smart people. Recently, he managed a computer engineering team from Israel who were working to complete high-level systems architecture programming for ZipRecruiter. “Many had come out of the Israeli military and were beyond elite,” he says. “They had been writing code to save lives. They were the best of the best—off-the-charts smart.”

    Instead of being intimidated, Siegel tapped into their motivation and changed the way he delivered his tasks. “I would start each project with the mission,” he says. “I would say, ‘This is the goal. This is the strategy. This is what success looks like.’”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3058080/lessons-learned/four-things-to-do-when-your-teams-smarter-than-you

  • Why Dropbox dropped Amazon’s cloud

    Not every company has the scale Dropbox operates at. And most companies would not see a huge benefit from customizing infrastructure to tailor it to their specific needs, Gupta says. Dropbox’s journey took two and a half years and required investments in personnel to figure out how infrastructure should be customized and other workers to manage their data centers.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3045641/cloud-computing/why-dropbox-dropped-amazons-cloud.html#tk.rss_all

  • People Want Power Because They Want Autonomy

    That people would value autonomy over influence jives with self-determination theory, a psychological theory that suggests autonomy is one of humans’ basic psychological needs, along with relatedness and competence. Influence is not aneed under this theory. Another study suggests that while striving for power lowers people’s well-being, once they have power, they really are happier, because they feel more authentic—the power makes them feel like the circumstances of their lives are more in line with who they feel they are inside. That may be because the power gives them the freedom to make their own decisions, and their sense of well-being grows when they do what they want.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/people-want-power-because-they-want-autonomy/474669/

  • Why Your Next Procurement Vehicle Should Be a Bus

    In San Francisco, under our Startup In Residence program, we’re experimenting with how to remove the friction associated with RFPs for both government staff and startups. For government staff, that means publishing an RFP in days, not months. For startups, it means responding to an RFP in hours not weeks.

    So what did we learn from our experience with the airport? We combined 17 RFPs into one; utilized general “challenge statements” in place of highly detailed project specifications; leveraged modern technology; and created a simple guide to navigating the process.

    http://www.techwire.net/news/why-your-next-procurement-vehicle-should-be-a-bus.html
    Copy of the procurement guide:
    https://startupinresidenceorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/stircontractingguideocareviewed1-28-2016-docx.pdf

Photo: Scott Web

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News You Can Use: 3/2/2016

sn_glasses_Dmitry Ratushny

  • How To Keep Your Cool When Your Friends’ Careers Are Moving Faster Than Yours

    Instead of moping, view the success of your friends as an opportunity, says Michael Kaminowitz, creator of New York City-based Welli, a mental well-being app. “Ask yourself how they got ahead faster than you,” he says. “Did they work harder? Learn faster? Play the office politics game better?”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3056793/hit-the-ground-running/how-to-keep-your-cool-when-your-friends-careers-are-moving-faster-tha

  • Overcoming 5 major supply chain challenges with big data analytics

    Sixty-one percent of companies regarded as leaders in supply chain management consider supply chain risk management very important. Those same leaders also recognize the need for capabilities that provide greater visibility and predictability across their supply chains (Source: Accenture). Big data can help assess the likelihood of a problem and its potential impact, and support techniques to identify supply chain risk. Combining the analysis of historical data, risk mapping, and scenario planning can enable a risk management approach for early warning.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3035655/data-center/overcoming-5-major-supply-chain-challenges-with-big-data-analytics.html#tk.rss_all

  • What To Say When You’re Stuck In The Elevator With Your Boss’s Boss

    Offer your congratulations. You can also congratulate your boss’s boss on an achievement, either his own, his department’s, or the company’s. If you saw him give a talk recently, don’t just say you liked it, explain why. If his department received an honor, mention that. If Q4 results were impressive, comment on that. People love to be recognized for success, and if you stay current with this sort of information—as you should—you’ll put a glow on the executive’s face.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3056838/what-to-say-when-youre-stuck-in-the-elevator-with-your-bosss-boss

  • Pirates: a cyber threat to supply chains

    Among the central features of this new cyber-supported piracy, and certainly the feature which most proliferates media representations of the problem, is the vision of navigation systems attacks- pirates successfully diverting vessels with false GPS and Automatic Identification System data.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–alex-johnston/pirates-a-cyber-threat-to-supply-chains-602484

  • Former Disney IT worker to Congress: How can you allow this?

    An internal meeting was called and Perrero gathered with co-workers, expecting good news of some sort. Instead, they were notified that had 90 days remaining at Disney and would be laid off on Jan. 30, 2015. But before that happened, they would be training their foreign replacements.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3038414/careers-staffing/former-disney-it-worker-to-congress-how-can-you-allow-this.html#tk.rss_all

  • Bill Gates “Blindsided” By Report That He Sides With FBI In Apple Dispute

    In an interview with Bloomberg TV this morning, Bill Gates said he was “blindsided” by and “disappointed” with reports that he sides with the FBI in its dispute with Apple over unlocking an iPhone connected to the San Bernardino killings. He said: “That doesn’t state my view on this. I do believe that with the right safeguards, there are cases where the government, on our behalf—like stopping terrorism, which could get worse in the future— …that is valuable.” He called for a healthy debate on the issue and said that we should strike a balance between privacy rights and legitimate security concerns. Gates also noted that the government has historically abused its powers, citing the case of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3057046/fast-feed/bill-gates-sides-with-fbi-says-apple-should-unlock-that-iphone

Photo: Dmitry Ratushny

Posted on

News You Can Use: 1/13/2016

sn_windows_Ricky Kharawala

  • A.T. Kearney Is Just Plain Wrong

    Not only are more than half of US manufacturers considering reshoring now, we have some really great examples of success stories including GE Appliance Park, Starbucks, Apple and others. In addition, we can point to other companies such as Haier, Nissan and Smithfield Foods where Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has directly resulted in the establishment of more manufacturing in America.

    All of the signs and statistics (other surveys by Boston Consulting Group, Alix Partners and several European studies) point to the rebuilding of manufacturing in America and in Western Europe. The trend is strong and we are very optimistic that it will continue to be so. US jobs loss to offshoring is now about equivalent to jobs created or reshored to America. We need to be reshoring supporters and make more of this happen, not detractors.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/a.t._kearney_is_just_plain_wrong

  • How Quitting Can Get You Exactly What You Want

    Quit selling those cheap houses to those unqualified, needy people who he didn’t like working with. If he was going to attract million-dollar sellers, he was going to have to give up on working with $100,000 homes. That meant reaching way out of his comfort zone and giving up on what he had built so far. If Jon was going to gain traction, pick up luxury sellers and earn more money, he was going to have to project the image of expertise, confidence and exclusivity. Exclusivity meaning he had to be selective of who he worked with. The days of taking on any old client were gone. If they didn’t fit the luxury mold, he had to refer them out.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253924

  • PAGING DR. ROBOT: THE COMING AI HEALTH CARE BOOM

    More than six billion dollars: That’s how much health care providers and consumers will be spending every year on artificial intelligence tools by 2021—a tenfold increase from today—according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. (Specifically, it will be a growth from $633.8 million in 2014 to $6,662.2 million in 2021.)

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3055256/elasticity/paging-dr-robot-the-coming-ai-health-care-boom

  • Strategic Sourcing predictions for 2016

    the doctor is already seeing a number of 2016 posts about how this is the year we replace “negotiate” with “collaborate” (which the thought leaders have been saying since strategic sourcing decision optimization started becoming common in the leading Sourcing organizations, also known as the Hackett Group top 8%), that analytics will take off (which is the same speech we heard 15 years ago when Business Objects and Cognos were the names in analytics), that the skills gap will finally be addressed (which reminds the doctor of conversations he was having nine years ago), and so on. It looks like the amount of future sh!t that is going to be dumped upon you this year is greater than the truckload Biff Tannen had dumped upon his head in the original Back to the Future movie, way back in 1985. (A reference that is very appropriate because every year at this time it seems we get taken back to the future.)

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2016/01/04/sis-prediction-for-2016-it-will-only-get-hotter/

  • To connect to last week’s podcast, How Millennials Are Affecting the Supply Chain

    Respondents said that the biggest impact millennials will have on the supply chain is in terms of how they change the way consumers buy. The move towards new marketplaces – online, mobile, via social media – will be one of the transformative ways supply chains will be affected.

    http://mhlnews.com/labor-management/how-millennials-are-affecting-supply-chain

  • In 2016, Intel’s Entire Supply Chain Will Be Conflict-Free

    Since Intel and other manufacturers began the program, the profits from mines have started flowing to miners themselves rather than to war. In the last study of three of the major materials—tungsten, tantalum, and tin—a nonprofit called the Enough Project found that the amount of money going to conflict had dropped 65%, and it continues to fall.

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3055066/change-generation/in-2016-intels-entire-supply-chain-will-be-conflict-free

Photo: Ricky Kharawala