The Answer Is 9,142: Understanding the Influence of Disruption Risk on Inventory Decision Making

The question was how many units of inventory a manager should order when faced with a possible disruption in supply. The correct answer is not guesswork, but based on 150 years of theory and practice. We examine individual choices made in this critical situation—and the results are not encouraging.

How to Find a Manufacturer in China

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?

The Human Factor: What Sets Quality Leaders in Manufacturing Apart

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.

From Risk to Resilience: Using Analytics and Visualization to Reduce Supply Chain Vulnerability

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.

Building a World-Class Global Procurement Organization

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

The Seven Deadly Sins of Outsourcing

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 ]

Location, Learning, and Logistics: A framework for Managing Trade-Offs in Capacity Location Decisions

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.

Link Strategy and Operations to Achieve Strategy Execution Excellence

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 ]

Better Fostering Innovation: 9 Steps That Improve Lean Six Sigma

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.

When Product Complexity Hurts True Profitability

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.

A Fresh Look at Procurement

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 ]

Ten Ways to Improve Inventory Management

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

Designing the Right Supply Chain

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

Managing Risks in the Supply Chain: Reaching New Standards

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.

Building the Supply Chain of the Future

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

Whipping the Supply Line into Shape

If a company makes purchases from its suppliers more unpredictably than it sells to its customers, it is said to “bullwhip.” Bullwhips can cause problems in the supply chain because it may be difficult for suppliers to adjust production in response to the changeable demand.

“Up until now,” says Robert Bray, an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School, “anyone who … [ Read more ]

Why Things Fail: From Tires to Helicopter Blades, Everything Breaks Eventually

Product failure is deceptively difficult to understand. It depends not just on how customers use a product but on the intrinsic properties of each part—what it’s made of and how those materials respond to wildly varying conditions. Estimating a product’s lifespan is an art that even the most sophisticated manufacturers still struggle with. And it’s getting harder. In our Moore’s law-driven age, we expect devices … [ Read more ]

Manufacturing Resource Productivity

Manufacturers can generate new value, minimize costs, and increase operational stability by focusing on four broad areas: production, product design, value recovery, and supply-circle management.

Capturing the Value that a Chief Operating Officer Can Bring

There are a number of open questions about the COO role and its place in company leadership. This article sheds some light on two of the most fundamental of these open questions: What does it take for a COO to succeed, and what is it that makes a great COO candidate?