May 2012
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Customer-supplier relationships: dancing with elephants

 When my company was a small supplier to Boeing, I was of course happy to have landed them as a customer. Our relationship was excellent and added value to both parties. Boeing took a chance with my company, an emerging technology business. And the initial bureaucracy that we had to go through to become a supplier [...]

When Your Supplier Is Bigger Than You Are

Many companies are concerned about suppliers who are larger than they are. How do you get a 500-pound gorilla to cooperate with you? Can you actually use the term “manage” in relation to a big supplier company? Actually, can you ever really manage even small suppliers? Not really. You can try to manage and [...]

Lean supply chains and the white spaces

In an effort to flow lean to suppliers, firms are often internally focused. They are concerned with how suppliers can support their needs and tend not to view the situation from a systems perspective. Often it is about what suppliers need to do to satisfy their customers — which is certainly an essential ingredient.  [...]

Lean Suppliers: It’s All About the Relationship

Some of the hidden cost drivers in the supply chain are relatively easy to uncover, measure and address by adopting classic lean approaches. However, many supply chain problems begin and end with the customer-supplier relationship. The extent to which critical issues, wastes and cost drivers can be identified and [...]