The fast-food restaurant drive-thru I go to every Sunday morning hasn’t been serving the liquid creamers that accompany the coffee I order with my meals. At first, they said the creamers were out of stock. A week later, they said they can only serve one (1) creamer instead of the two (2) that should comeContinue reading “How Important Productivity is to the Value Chain”
Category Archives: The Supply Chain Engineer
Logistics Solutions Can Be Simple
A medium sized retailer of health food items imports products from abroad. The retailer prides itself with a very well organised warehouse and a crew of workers that swiftly repack the imported products and send them to the retailer’s stores all over the country. The retailer’s sales department, however, has constantly complained about lack ofContinue reading “Logistics Solutions Can Be Simple”
Six (6) Principles to Successful Flexibility
Flexible manufacturing was popular in the 1990’s. Twenty years into the 21st century, we don’t hear much about it anymore. Instead, we hear a lot more about digital and connectivity. Amid a raging pandemic, people also talk about resilience. Whatever the buzzword, what matters in the end is how well enterprises deliver versus customer demand. Continue reading “Six (6) Principles to Successful Flexibility”
Six Elements to Find in a Digital Roadmap
A large producer of canned fruit items installed a brand-new radio-frequency identification (RFID) system at its manufacturing facility. The RFID system aimed to streamline the producer’s inventory management system. The canned fruit producer’s workers stuck RFID tags on every case of canned fruit and on the pallets where the cases were stacked. As forklift operatorsContinue reading “Six Elements to Find in a Digital Roadmap”
Ten (10) Examples Towards Building Better Supply Chains
For years, experts have cited the urgent need for supply chains to adapt and get better. In 2005, Paul Michelman via the Harvard Business Review wrote: “Threats to your supply chain, and therefore to your company, abound—natural disasters, accidents, and intentional disruptions—their likelihood and consequences heightened by long, global supply chains, ever-shrinking product lifecycles, andContinue reading “Ten (10) Examples Towards Building Better Supply Chains”
The Four (4) Priorities of Business
San Miguel Corporation (SMC) is the largest business enterprise in the Philippines and is among the top 2,000 global firms listed by Forbes magazine. SMC’s gross revenue was PhP 384 billion ($USD 7.6 billion approximately) in 2018 earned from its diversified portfolio that includes food & beverage products, real estate properties, and infrastructure & energyContinue reading “The Four (4) Priorities of Business”
Reducing Losses, Whatever the Type, Whatever the Scale
Material losses happen in every industry. From the time a raw material is mined, extracted, or harvested, to the point where it finally is transformed and delivered as a finished product, there will be some loss along the way. Not all merchandise that comes into an operation comes out 100% intact in the finished product. Continue reading “Reducing Losses, Whatever the Type, Whatever the Scale”
Hoarding and How to Discourage It
When people buy a little more than what they usually need, we call it speculation. When they buy much, much more, we call it hoarding. What happens when people hoard? Do the enterprises that supply the goods gain in sales and profits? Do hoarders make money? Hoarding happens when people perceive they might not beContinue reading “Hoarding and How to Discourage It”
Improving the Customer Experience and Gaining Higher Productivity
An automotive service centre in Manila, Philippines advertises that it opens at 8:00am. The doors actually open, however, around 8:15am. Employees time in before and after 8am but pass through the washroom before heading to their desks. A waiting client who would have arrived at 8:00am would probably be served earliest at 8:30am. The automotiveContinue reading “Improving the Customer Experience and Gaining Higher Productivity”
Competitive & Non-Competitive Priorities and How to Deal with Them
In several firms I’ve worked with, I couldn’t help but notice that supply chain managers would sometimes be engrossed with priorities regarding compliance to government-mandated occupational safety & health standards. They would have long meetings and spend much time on the nitty-gritties of reports to be filed and procedures to follow. But in the followingContinue reading “Competitive & Non-Competitive Priorities and How to Deal with Them”
Ellery's Essays 