564 Posts Found

Ever seen books with their covers torn off? This is one of the telltale signs that buyers and suppliers, seeking to optimize their supply chain, have struck a buy-back agreement. While buyers and suppliers need to negotiate such types of deals, finding a mutually advantageous arrangement is no easy feat, especially when it comes to a field as complex as supply-chain economics. Considering all the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: David Simchi-Levi, Víctor Martínez de Albéniz | Source: IESE Insight | Subject: Operations

The purchasing function is acquiring high priority in the eyes of senior management for a number of reasons. First, increasingly global strategies for marketing and manufacturing require equally global approaches to sourcing. The skills and knowledge required for effective worldwide sourcing are quite different from those typically found in a domestic purchasing organization. Furthermore, in a global company, purchasing plays a far greater role in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Roy D. Shapiro | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: International, Management, Operations

Low-cost-country outsourcing has become much more sophisticated, but that doesn’t mean outsourcing is the answer for every company. Not all products – and not all portions of a product’s supply chain-should be outsourced. Lasting competitive advantage requires a nuanced approach. You must consider internal costs and organizational processes in deciding what you send, where you send it, and how you operate. Even when outsourcing is … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Hubert Hsu, Jim Hemerling, Jonathan Cowan, Katrina Helmkamp, Michael Zinser | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO

When it comes to making your business more profitable and successful, don’t look to re-engineering for answers. A better way is to apply the concept of kaizen, which means making simple, common-sense improvements and refinements to critical business processes.The result: greater productivity, quality, and profits achieved with minimal cost, time, and effort invested. In this book, you discover how to maximize the results of kaizen … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Masaaki Imai | Subjects: Management, Operations

Companies often respond to competitive pressures by adding unnecessary complexity to their business. Including complexity management as part of a comprehensive performance management program can bring competitive advantage.

Content: Article | Author: Sonny Saksena | Source: Business Performance Management | Subjects: Management, Operations

Many companies believe that they incur no incremental costs when they add just one more feature to a product or one more term or condition to a contract. Yet these seemingly minor changes accumulate over time into significant financial costs; IBM research has found that they can account for 15 percent to 20 percent of total business costs. The rule of thumb across industries is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Business Performance Management | Subjects: Finance, Operations

Your customer contact center is more important to your customer relationships than you think, especially if you know which calls to keep and which calls to outsource.

Content: Article | Authors: Adam Dixon, Alex Liu, Craig Knox-Lyttle, Mary Larson, Omer Sevil | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Operations

When The Machine That Changed the World was first published in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Today Toyota is passing GM as the world’s largest auto maker and is the most consistently successful global enterprise of the past fifty years. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota’s lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.

Now … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Daniel Roos, Daniel T. Jones, James P. Womack | Subjects: Management, Operations | Industry: Automotive

How a supply chain transformation helped put the beloved toymaker back together again.

Content: Case Study | Authors: Edouard Samakh, Keith Oliver, Peter Heckmann | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Operations | Company: Lego Group

Content: Online Resource | Subjects: Courses / Tutorials, Operations

Content: Online Resource | Subjects: Courses / Tutorials, Operations

Outsourcing parts of the supply chain has disrupted the flow of critical data. Targeted IT investments can restore what’s missing.

Content: Article | Authors: Aditya Pande, Ramesh Raman, Vats Srivatsan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations

Companies that rush overseas in search of low production costs may be walking into a strategic trap, as gridlock hits ports and railways in the United States and Europe. It’s easy to underestimate the hidden costs in long supply chains and their impact on profitability. The authors demonstrate how companies can get a handle on costs by comparing the economics of a typical North American … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: George Stalk Jr., Michael J. Silverstein | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: International – China, Operations

The most effective procurement model fosters knowledge sharing, not mistrust.

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Jackson, Michael Pfitzmann | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Operations

Across the automotive industry and around the globe, Toyota ranks as suppliers’ preferred OEM-the one with which they would most like to do more business. Yet Toyota is also known to be extremely demanding of its suppliers and rigorous in its insistence on openness and highly disciplined processes. The authors outline the principles and practices that Toyota employs to win its suppliers’ extraordinary performance-and loyalty. … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Authors: Georg Sticher, Jagjit Singh, Malte Kalkoffen, Xavier Mosquet, Zafar Momin | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations | Industry: Automotive | Company: Toyota

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Less than a generation ago, the procurement function’s leader was typically a director who reported to a vice president who reported to a member of the executive team. Today, supply management has a seat in the executive suite and sees its responsibility and accountability constantly increasing.

To explore the future of supply management, the Center for Advanced Procurement and Supply (CAPS) Research, the Institute for Supply … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: Center for Advanced Procurement and Supply (CAPS) Research, Kearney | Subject: Operations

Standout companies are now stepping back and adopting a new and broader perspective on the age-old cost reduction problem, one that encompasses not only traditional supply-side cost restructuring (e.g., business process reengineering (BPR), shared services, ERP, strategic outsourcing), but also demand-side optimization strategies. Approaching the cost reduction challenge from both sides has unlocked major benefits and savings for such companies.

Content: Article | Source: Strategy& | Subjects: Management, Operations

In this paper, we seek to use quantitative models to help appreciate the behavioral processes associated with successful cross-functional and cross-firm alignment in supply/demand planning. We model the interaction between a sales and a manufacturing function within a firm, or between an upstream and downstream firm. We claim that misalignment is costly both to the involved functions/firms and to the rest of the organization or … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Noel Watson, Santiago Kraiselburd | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) | Subjects: Operations, Organizational Behavior

Because external spending is the largest cost center for most companies, many firms have done the obvious things to cut costs in procurement, such as renegotiating contracts with suppliers and consolidating big-volume purchases. But these tactics, which focus on one-time supplier price reductions, cannot drive long-term performance gains.

Managers need an approach that allows them to realize and sustain high returns on their investment in improving … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: David Bovet, Grégory Kochersperger, Matthew Anderson | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Management, Operations