5 Critical Focus Areas for an Effective Supply Chain

The volatility in the Kansas manufacturing environment demands an optimized high performing supply chain. Lowest price, shortest lead time, or acceptable quality are strategies that can no longer be relied on by companies.  Instead Total Cost of Ownership, predictable lead time and excellent quality should be the new normal. 

When was the last time you looked at how effectively your supply chain is performing?  Is your supply chain optimized? How would you know?  The optimization process begins with a comprehensive understanding of your supply chain. The following five critical areas require your immediate management attention to achieve an optimized high performing supply chain:

1. Alignment – The supply chain strategy needs to actively align and support the corporate goals of future growth, innovation and sustainability.

2. Value - The supply chain strategy should identify suppliers who will assist us in achieving our future goals through collaboration and providing a means of growing our mutual businesses through sharing of ideas, capabilities and capacity.

3. Managing Risk – A well thought out Risk Management Plan is necessary to prevent supply chain interruptions and unexpected events that would render our product uncompetitive, unavailable, or unattractive to the marketplace.

4. Comprehensive View – The performance of the entire supply chain must be examined in order to identify current and potential future constraints. If we only look at suppliers who represent current bottlenecks we will fail to recognize potential future constraints.

5. Metrics – We can’t improve what we don’t measure. If we don’t measure the “right things” the problems will persist.

Remember, you are part of your supply chain, so these things apply internally as well.  If you are not optimizing your supply chain, it is subject to variation and dependencies that will impact your customers and ultimately both your top and bottom lines.  Isn’t it time you eliminate the unknown and focus on the areas listed above?

Joe Torrago
jtorrago@mamtc.com
http://mamtc.com
913-967-1213