A business owner asked me: how can I manage my company’s inventories more efficiently? The business owner imported soap, luggage, and cell phones, in short: assorted merchandise. He shipped in and kept hundreds of items in inventory, in which he had trouble keeping track. Sometimes he had too many items in storage or had tooContinue reading “Knowing Your Inventory ABC’s”
Tag Archives: Supply Chain Engineering
The Need to Change the Supply Chain
When a parcel arrives at my doorstep, I see myself at the end of a supply chain process—a process which involved multiple operations from procurement, manufacturing, to logistics. But I could care less. What mattered is I got my parcel and the items I ordered. The individuals in the respective supply chain processes which enabledContinue reading “The Need to Change the Supply Chain”
Four (4) Starting Points to Getting the Reliability You Want
MANILA, Philippines, October 3, 2019. An electrical transformer (rectifier) at the Light Rail Transit Line 2’s (LRT-2) commuter railway tripped and caught fire. The fire knocked out train service from downtown Manila to the eastern suburbs of Marikina and Cainta. Thousands of commuters from workers to students were forced to find alternative transportation. The dayContinue reading “Four (4) Starting Points to Getting the Reliability You Want”
Elements of Productivity
Our objectives stem from our business priorities, which usually consist of: How managers perform against objectives relative to meeting their business organisations’ priorities define their productivity. The mistake managers make is classifying productivity as a mere performance measure. As much as it does make visible how well the enterprise performs, productivity is more an attributeContinue reading “Elements of Productivity”
Pursuing Productivity Amid Adversity
The year 2025 arrived and what many businesses dreaded came true. Newly inaugurated American President Donald Trump and his economic hawks swooped and threw global trade into turmoil. Arguing unfair trade practices from many nations, President Trump imposed tariffs on billions of dollars of imports from Canada, Mexico, China, and the European Union (EU), withContinue reading “Pursuing Productivity Amid Adversity”
Missing in Supply Chains: Productivity
If there’s one thing I find missing in every business news story I’ve read, it’s: productivity. If there is an article about productivity, it usually is in the context of labour efficiency or how much output workers churn out over a given period. Some media writers define productivity as to how many tasks we completeContinue reading “Missing in Supply Chains: Productivity”
What Do We Do with ‘Bad Orders?’
One of the most irritating things in supply chain management is handling returned items from customers. We spend plenty of our precious time & resources trying to get rid of them. ‘Bad orders’ or BO for short are otherwise known as unsaleable merchandise or trade returns. BO is a commonplace term in the consumer goodsContinue reading “What Do We Do with ‘Bad Orders?’”
Avoiding the Wrong Supply Chain Strategy
One mistake enterprise owners make is to use the wrong supply chain strategy for their products. The effects can be costly. The following are some true-to-life cases: Many enterprise owners hire executives or engage consultants that have no knowledge or experience about the products they will work with. In many cases, the executives or consultantsContinue reading “Avoiding the Wrong Supply Chain Strategy”
Building the Supply Chain at Both Ends
A supply chain essentially has two (2) ends: the suppliers (e.g., vendors, service providers) and the customers (e.g., clients, consumers, users). We who manage our businesses work both ends at the same time as our suppliers see us as customers and our customers see us as suppliers. We multitask as both suppliers and customers. InContinue reading “Building the Supply Chain at Both Ends”
The Real Value of Demand Forecasting
“We start our planning with the forecast.” This is what I’ve heard in the last three (3) organizations I’ve engaged with. These three (3) organizations often started their Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) meetings with a comparison of forecast versus actual sales data. In most cases, the actual sales data didn’t come out close toContinue reading “The Real Value of Demand Forecasting”
Ellery's Essays 