The following are questions customers typically ask supply chain managers: “Why is it taking you so long to deliver my order?” “When will you deliver?” “How many of the items we ordered will you deliver today?” “How much of an item do you have available?” “Your items didn’t meet our specs; when will you replaceContinue reading “The Many Questions Supply Chain Managers Are Asked to Answer”
Category Archives: The Supply Chain Engineer
How Sales & Supply Chain People Can Work Together
Customer inquiries and quotations have long been seen as traditional jobs of sales professionals. Field sales representatives visit customers and strive to get orders from them. When customers inquire, sales professionals are expected to answer with accurate information. Trouble starts when sales professionals have no adequate answers to give. Sales professionals may know prices, terms,Continue reading “How Sales & Supply Chain People Can Work Together”
Pursuing Perfection Beyond the Acceptable Quality Level (AQL)
An ad promotes an Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) subscription plans. On the bottom in small fine print is written “30% minimum speed at 80& reliability.” The Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in a memorandum in 2011 mandated that ISPs should provide at least 80% service reliability to customers: An ISP therefore should be able toContinue reading “Pursuing Perfection Beyond the Acceptable Quality Level (AQL)”
The Death Industry’s Supply Chain
Dying is a complicated business. No one really plans for it in advance. For those who are charged with the affairs of the ones who pass away, there is always so much to do and limited time to do so. Funeral service providers have become more than just parlours where proprietors prepare the deceased forContinue reading “The Death Industry’s Supply Chain”
Automated Queuing Systems Don’t Reduce Waiting Times
A large bank installed an automated queuing system at its branches. Clients were required to enter the details of their transactions on a terminal and receive a queuing number and then wait to be called by the teller via a display on a video screen. The system replaced the previous process of clients writing onContinue reading “Automated Queuing Systems Don’t Reduce Waiting Times”
Problems are Doorways to Opportunities
Since the start of 2021, semiconductor chips, which are used in cars, trucks, computers, and smart-phones, have been in short supply. Supply has been so short that automotive companies have shut down assembly lines and consumer electronics corporations have delayed roll-outs of new products. Bloomberg reported in its September 22, 2021 Supply Lines newsletter thatContinue reading “Problems are Doorways to Opportunities”
Solving the Supply Chain Mystery
I once met a regional sales manager of a large consumer good company at Davao City, the biggest city on the island of Mindanao, 978 kilometres (608 miles) south of Manila, Philippines. As I was introduced, the RSM looked at me for a moment and smiled broadly. “You’re a supply chain consultant?” Before I couldContinue reading “Solving the Supply Chain Mystery”
What is a Supply Chain, Really?
The first time I heard about supply chains was when I was working as a production planner at P&G Philippines in 1989. P&G’s top management had just reorganised the multinational consumer goods corporation’s operations worldwide, integrating manufacturing, purchasing, and logistics under one group: the Product Supply Organisation or PSO, for short. The aim of theContinue reading “What is a Supply Chain, Really?”
The Path Towards Becoming a Supply Chain Expert Begins with Basic Competency
Sometimes identifying a problem is not in observing what’s going on; sometimes it’s noticing what’s not there. In my blog, “Where are the Supply Chain Experts?”, written last March 2020, I wrote there were no supply chain experts seen working side by side with business and government leaders in solving supply issues at the heightContinue reading “The Path Towards Becoming a Supply Chain Expert Begins with Basic Competency”
Six (6) Reasons Why We Need to Learn How to Manage Supply Chains
Why do we need to learn how to manage supply chains? The answer to the question may seem straightforward at first. We need to learn how to manage supply chains so that we can ensure the availability of products and services at the right quantity, right quality, at the time they’re needed, and atContinue reading “Six (6) Reasons Why We Need to Learn How to Manage Supply Chains”
Ellery's Essays 