561 Posts Found

You have a product idea and you want a manufacturer to produce it for you. But you’re on a limited budget so sourcing in China seems like a good idea. You know that China has many low-cost manufacturers. But how do you find the right one?

Content: Article | Author: Rieva Lesonsky | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subjects: International – China, Operations, Outsourcing / BPO

A wide-ranging study of best practices in quality management highlights the importance of human and cultural factors and shows how manufacturers can improve their performance—and gain the competitive edge enjoyed by quality leaders in an age of increasingly complex products and rising customer expectations.

Content: Article | Authors: Alexander Linder, Daniel Spindelndreier, Frank Lesmeister, Helmut Lieb, Robert Schmitt | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Operations

Complex supply chains require sophisticated, connected tools to monitor risks, predict disruptions, and support rapid recovery as part of an overall resilience strategy. For leading companies, this line of thinking has led to an increase in adoption of advanced tools grounded in analytics and visualization.

Content: Article | Authors: Jerry O’Dwyer, Kelly Marchese | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Operations, Risk Management

Companies have set aggressive targets to squeeze cost savings from procurement, but meeting those goals often requires a new approach.

Content: Article | Authors: Alexander Schmitz, Klaus Neuhaus, Tobias Umbeck | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Finance, Management, Operations

While outsourcing is a powerful tool to cut costs, improve performance, and refocus on the core business, outsourcing initiatives often fall short of management’s expectations. Through a survey of nearly a hundred outsourcing efforts in Europe and the United States, I found that one or more of seven “deadly sins” underlie most failed outsourcing efforts:
1. Outsourcing activities that should not be outsourced
2. Selecting … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jérôme Barthélemy | Source: Academy of Management | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO

If you put a good person into a bad system the system will win. This has been proven so often that it has become a truism in the quality improvement field called the “85/15 Rule”. The 85/15 Rule shows that if you trace errors or service complaints back to the root cause, about 85% of the time the fault lays in the system, processes, structure, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jim Clemmer | Subjects: Operations, Organizational Behavior, Quality

Business leaders who misjudge the location of production relative to the location of product and process development resources may adversely impact the company’s long-term competitive position. We explore the link between production location decisions, the nature of the capabilities required to create a product, and the ability of a company to develop the next-generation technologies it may seek.

Content: Article | Authors: David Uhryniak, Josh Timberlake, Mark Cotteleer | Source: Deloitte Review | Subject: Operations

Even with good systems, you still need good people.

Content: Article | Author: Zeynep Ton | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Human Resources, Management, Operations

How AkzoNobel NV, a leading manufacturer, is making its health, safety, and environment procedures stronger by making them more consistent.

Content: Case Study | Author: Richard Westlake | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Operations, Social Responsibility (ESG)

The supposition is prevalent the world over that there would be no problems in production or in service if only our production workers would do their jobs in the way they were taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to management.

Content: Quotation | Author: W. Edwards Deming | Subjects: Management, Operations, Quality

A brilliant strategy will not produce its intended results if it is not translated into operational terms that define new ways of working. It is one thing to declare important strategic objectives. But to achieve these objectives, managers must link strategy to operations; that is, they must identify the specific work processes and actions needed to reach the strategic objectives the company has defined. Only … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Randall H. Russell | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Management, Operations, Strategy

It is not centralization that drives scale; it’s specialization. And that doesn’t have to be central at all. Specialization is about where you create centers of excellence—and that may or may not be at the corporate center. Now, creating this integrated network of specialized operations does increase the coordination needs. So when we wrote about centralization versus coordination, we emphasized the challenges of coordinating operations … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Christopher A. Bartlett | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Operations, Organizational Behavior

Lean Six Sigma brings rigor and discipline to project management, but its approach to project selection is lacking. A new approach incorporates a structured, enterprise-level view of metrics to jump-start corporate innovation.

Content: Article | Author: Forrest W. Breyfogle III | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Operations, Project Management

Most companies are prolific producers of new products. This can be a good strategy for raising share and accessing new markets, but it can backfire if companies cannot determine which items actually make money. A product complexity management framework can help you determine what to make, what to jettison and how to increase product profitability.

Content: Article | Authors: Antal Kamps, Gustaf Sahlén, Johan Sjöström Bayer, Mikael Hilding, Robin Sparrefors | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Operations

When supply cost pressures increase, so does the opportunity to gain an important source of untapped margin. By taking a more comprehensive approach to what they buy and how they buy it, companies can free up cash and refocus resources to fund strategic priorities without the pain of layoffs. A comprehensive approach means deploying a broader set of tools to better negotiate prices or becoming … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Clinton Anderson, David Fleisch, Greg Gerstenhaber, Sam Thakarar | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Operations

There’s more to streamlining inventory levels than the standard advice, repeated ad infinitum, of applying “just-in-time” techniques.

Content: Article | Authors: Pratap Mukharji, Ronald Fink, Sam Israelit | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Operations

Companies that align their operations to their strategy unleash superior performance.

Content: Article | Authors: Adam Michaels, Curt Mueller, Richard Kauffeld | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Operations, Strategy

Supply chain risk is an increasingly common topic and for good reason: Almost any disruption—weather event, supply failure, technology glitch, financial fiasco—can affect a company’s ability to manage its supply chain. Accenture discusses the many forms of risk, surveys risk management technologies and introduces a five-step risk management program.

Content: Article | Authors: Carlos A. Alvarenga, Eric E. Lehmann | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Operations, Risk Management

The first question for organizations exploring multiple supply chains is how many are needed. Answering it requires a close look at the way the supply chain assets that a company uses to manufacture and distribute its products matches up against the strategic aspirations it has for those products and their customers.

This requirement seems obvious, but in practice most companies examine only the second half of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alex Niemeyer, Brian Ruwadi, Yogesh Malik | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations

Getting there means ditching today’s monolithic model in favor of splintered supply chains that dismantle complexity, and using manufacturing networks to hedge uncertainty.

Content: Article | Authors: Alex Niemeyer, Brian Ruwadi, Yogesh Malik | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations