Just When You Thought School Was Out, Here’s Another Supply Chain Lesson

As a supply chain professional attending a recent graduation ceremony, I couldn't help but think of the state of our industry as I listened to commencement speaker challenge the graduating seniors to pursue lifelong learning, challenge the status quo, and never stop searching for the "paradigm shift".

Working in a supply chain environment creates opportunities to help our organizations grow and adapt to massive changes in the global economy. To really have a continuing positive impact, we need to acknowledge the increased complexity and velocity of today's business climate.

Despite the fact that  globalization and other market trends have redefined the way businesses operate, the conventional structure of the supply chain has not strayed far from its origins. To many in the field, it still means:

• we plan and then execute;
• organizations and their respective processes operate as silos of people, data and applications;
• collaboration and coordination is limited in scope and speed as a result of the disconnected nature of operations;
• And, planning processes, like S&OP, are largely sequential and therefore can take weeks or months to complete.

The status quo might have been good enough if the world around us had not changed since those early days of supply chain, with its vertically integrated, build-to-stock model. The biggest change is most likely the amount of volatility and complexity one must deal with, as a result of such things as shortened product life cycles, outsourcing, and unexpected supply chain disruptions, such as natural disasters. This list could go on. I would recommend a number of my colleague, Trevor Miles' posts on the 21^st century supply chain blog including "Embrace ...