The Order-Winning Operations Strategy

We, whether we are executives, entrepreneurs, or employees, face challenges and disruptions every day.  Most of us have goals or at least have things we want to realise or get done.  We hate it when we run into obstacles.  We therefore develop strategies to anticipate and overcome them, if not get around them. Goals areContinue reading “The Order-Winning Operations Strategy”

Supply Chain Engineers Have Much to Offer

‘There were nearly 2.2 million mentions of “supply chain” on Twitter in the fourth quarter of 2021, some five times more than in any quarter in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic…’     Global supply chains were a mess in 2022, so it seems when one reads any business news article or video that year. SinceContinue reading “Supply Chain Engineers Have Much to Offer”

Don’t Forget Productivity in Promoting Resilience

When the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 catastrophically caused a sudden global economic recession, enterprises went on the defensive to keep their businesses afloat; executives promised stakeholders they would transform their organisations to become more resilient.  Risk management was the popular precursor to resilience.  In risk management, managers laid out possible threats and prepared for them. Continue reading “Don’t Forget Productivity in Promoting Resilience”

A Reminder to Walk Around

I finalised a contract to lease an office unit to a new tenant in February 2022.  I obliged to give the tenant two (2) free months of rent or up to the end of March 2022 to allow him to make improvements and buy & move in his furniture & equipment.  I didn’t see theContinue reading “A Reminder to Walk Around”

When Increasing Capacity Becomes a Priority

One Sunday morning, a homeless woman at a traffic intersection was approaching cars and begging for alms.  Some drivers give but most don’t.  But the woman persists anyway; she shows a sign saying she’s homeless and asks for money for food.  I thought as I observed the homeless woman:  if the government could spend soContinue reading “When Increasing Capacity Becomes a Priority”

Lessons Learned from E-Commerce

December 28, 2020.  We ordered the food but couldn’t find the riders to deliver them.  Our family of cousins, uncles, and aunts couldn’t be together for New Year’s Eve.  Reunions and parties were not allowed in lieu of ongoing restrictions brought on by the CoVID-19 pandemic.  Instead, we ordered food from a food shop andContinue reading “Lessons Learned from E-Commerce”

A Letter to the IE: More than Ever, We Need to Lead the World to Productivity

Dear Industrial Engineer*           The year 2020 ended without a happy ending.  The SARS-CoV-2 virus had not gone away.  It continues to be a global threat going into 2021.  Political and enterprise leaders have done all they can to defeat the virus.  There was hope.  Thanks to record-breaking world-class collaboration efforts, vaccines have become realitiesContinue reading “A Letter to the IE: More than Ever, We Need to Lead the World to Productivity”

We Need Better Monitoring Systems

Most executives like performance measures.  Otherwise known as metrics, key performance indicators (KPI’s), analytics, or scorecards, enterprises embrace performance measures as a means to assess how their businesses are doing. The point of a performance measure is to check how an individual or team is doing against a target that is set by superiors.  (NoContinue reading “We Need Better Monitoring Systems”

Why We Need to Build Supply Chains

Enterprises are planning to rebuild their supply chains in the wake of the pandemic of 2020.  Well, no, not really.  Many enterprises are planning to resume production and boost inventories in the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic.1 Some firms will narrow their product lines to those that are in high demand (e.g. toilet paper).  OthersContinue reading “Why We Need to Build Supply Chains”