Category: Supply Chain

Innovative Planning, Superior Results.

Safety Stock and excess demand

SCM Fundamentals: Safety Stock

Safety stock is a buffer against risk and uncertainty.  It is designed to reduce or eliminate stock outs due to unforeseen events in your supply chain. If you do not hold enough safety stock you risk a shortage situation with your customer.  Safety Stock creates demand because you need to produce enough stock to meet…
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Factory Supply Chain

Supply Chain Management will increase in importance post Covid-19

I came across an interesting article about how Supply Chain Management is finding a new level of importance on the agenda in many Boardrooms. Supply chains have often fallen under the VP of Operations responsibility on many boards. It was often seen as the simply moving around the output from operations. But in many corporations…
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SCM Fundamentals: Customer Orders: Part 2

In the last post we looked at what types of customer demand you can expect to see in your system.  Now we will look at what information will be on the actual order that you get from the customer.  This is important because by accepting the order you are in effect entering into a form…
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SCM Fundamentals: Customer Orders: Part 1

Now that we have talked in depth about forecasting what the customer will order we finally get to talk about what the customer will actually order. So what are the different types of customer demand  Sample Requests: This may be the first order for an item you will get from a customer. Often your sales…
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Meeting Agreement

SCM Awareness: The Forecasting Process 4

Now that you hopefully understand the forecast process you can start to create one into the future to the end of the “forecast horizon”.  So, is it best to use the quantitative (numbers) method or the qualitative (personal experience & opinion) method?  My personal preference was to use a combination. I would use forecasting tools…
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Old style data

SCM Awareness: The Forecasting Process 3

Continuing on our look into the Forecasting process now we will look at the data you will use. Now that you know the method(s) you will use you have to start to Gather the data you need.  We have covered some of this when discussing the types of forecasting methods (Qualitative or quantitative).  You could…
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Forecast Methods

SCM Awareness: The Forecasting Process 2

Continuing on our look into the Forecasting process now we will look at some forecasting methods. A key decision you will have to make is Choosing what method you will use. Qualitative or quantitative or most likely a mix of both.  Quantitative methods look at historical data.  Qualitative methods look at opinion.  This can be…
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Forecasting

SCM Awareness: The Forecasting Process 1

Now that you understand the basic concepts and elements of a forecast let’s look at the process for creating and maintaining such a forecast. Determine what the forecast is for. Determine how far out you will look and what the interval or buckets will be Determine what level of detail the forecast will look at.…
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Forecast

SCM Awareness: Introduction to Forecasting

You might think the first piece of demand we should cover is Customer Orders. Well for most businesses’ forecasts are more important. This is because the lead-time back through the supply chain is so long that you have to plan production based on a forecast of demand rather than actual customer orders.  There are exceptions…
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S&OP

SCM Awareness: S&OP Process

Sales and Operations Planning is better known as S&OP.  It is a common process designed to give management an overview of the expected performance of the business through the next few months with an objective of balancing supply and demand. It started in the 1980s with large multinational corporations but is now an increasingly mainstream…
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