Ques1. Looking to the organization you are in now, do you see any high-impact opportunities for becoming more lean that you can briefly share?  What would be the specific actions to take, the specific potential benefits and trade-offs?

Student response on this – I’m really fortunate to work in a small organization where I can bring process-improvements to senior leadership and receive buy-in and support fairly quickly. I’ve done this quite often in the last year in regards to improving and utilizing templates. Our organization is a contract research organization that specializes in clinical trial oversight and project management. There is always a lot of room to improve processes with the work that we do. Given that many of our deliverables are documents, plans, and reports, it’s helpful to have high quality templates in place that can be customizeable per the project or clinical trial. This cuts down the time needed to perform the work as well as the time that the sponsor has to wait for the final product. It also standardizes our documents creating a quality benchmark. We also have several onboarding projects that seek to make this process more lean by decreasing repetition. With video conferencing and recording becoming more popular, trainers at our organization strive to record their trainings so that they can be referenced later, freeing up hours of time spent doing 1:1 training.

Ques 2. Successful supply chain.

What are your thoughts briefly on why each of the following is critical for a successful supply chain operation?

a. Integrated technology

b. Information sharing

c. Trust among trading partners

d. Real time information availability

e. Event management capability

f. Procurement

g. Risk management

Students response on this – Many factors are critical for successful supply chain operations:

 

Integrated technology is necessary because  there are many  stops in the supply chain: from raw materials to processing to actual manufacturing with many transportations in between. For a company that is vertically integrated this can all even be under one roof.  Either way within each of these stations in a products life,  there needs to be communication. A lack of communication can cause an surplus or a deficit which will be either wasteful  and/or create a halt in production. Waste can be seen as waste in production of unnecessary products, or literally products that may go to waste over-time , such as fresh  food.  Wasted time is also very costly. Therefore integrated technology is essential so the supply chain can be visible to those at the top making decisions , and within each of these departments so they can be aware of how those within their supply chain are progressing. This allows better decisions with active information instead of working siloed. With  proper integrated technology this can help to keep waste down, and inventory if this is important for a production line. Most productions require efficiency with throughput to be financially solvent. Integration technology is basically the hardware/ software necessary to allow this information sharing to occur. The key is to have this information as accurate as possible.  As time is usually of the essence to decrease waste, having this information in real time is critical to success.  Finding out 2 months later that the tomato shipment is delayed due to workers being on strike does not help the ketchup production line. Finding this out in real time can allow one to strategize the other options. The sooner one knows about problems, the sooner they can strategize and perhaps minimize the risks and minimize the slow-down in the production line. It is this event management capability that is able to analyze the real time information that is being shared and to predict if there is going to be a potential conflict in the production line.  By monitoring and sending out notifications, the supply chain can operate leaner than without this mechanism. This helps to decrease waste and costs also for all who participate in the supply chain.  Ultimately if the production is not going to meet a customers demand, a discussion up front prior to planned delivery will be more than likely to be accepted with less disappointment then waiting until the planned delivery date. It gives time to negotiate that perhaps they can at least delivery some of the products ahead of time , if helpful  to the customer, with a second delayed shipment.  Also with this information, everyone in the production line can adjust their labor schedules based on any delays that may occur.

 

Procurement is a concept that a manufacturer becomes the choice customer with a supplier.  This is balance of estimating demands, working with standards and technical specifications and negotiating prices. Being a preferential customer to a supplier can allow them to be more innovative with their products and bring products to the market faster. This allows them to have a competitive edge and perhaps even higher margins. This all occurs because they can have dependable quality products and with efficient movement in this supply chain. This creates value as supplies and materials are usual purchased at best available price and therefore lowering operational costs. A successful company needs to research  which suppliers can best meet their needs. While they may have participate in these preferential supply chain, all along however, they must  constantly incorporate risk management. They need to  continually address risks and mitigate them as they come along.  It is the continual evaluation and prediction of glitches in the supply chain and minimizing them which can help to decrease waste and therefore cost.

 

All this is not possible unless there is trust amongst the trading partners. If there is no trust, there is no collaboration. As you can tell from the above discussion, this requires a interrelationship of shared knowledge to allow a supply chain to work as effectively and predictable as possible.  Companies todays are very interconnected. It also requires the timely delivery of goods , and also payment. Without either, a significant bottleneck  can occur in a supply chain with significant downstream and upstream repercussions.  It requires promises that are made, to be kept, so future decisions can be made with as accurate information as possible.  With trust, the system can be flexible. Also by performing well with efficiencies, they can keep costs down.