May 2012
S M T W T F S
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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 [...]

Supply Chain Cost Drivers: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

The wastes that are part of lean thinking are well-documented, waste being defined as anything that doesn’t add value to the customer or that a customer would not be willing to pay for. The classic seven wastes in lean thinking include: unnecessary transport, inventory, wasted motion, waiting, [...]

Lean Suppliers: Thinking Out of the Box (of inventory)

 A lean supply chain is a dynamic ecosystem comprised of processes, products and firms that work together smoothly to deliver products and services and add value to the entire network as they meet customer requirements in a cost-effective manner. Given that most firms have limited resources and limited [...]

Lean Supply Chains – What Are They?

The term “lean supply chain” is bandied about by many to the point where the term is becoming a bit generic or even meaningless. Just like the lean enterprise, the lean supply chain is easy to understand, but harder to deploy — and, in many cases, is more consultant-speak [...]