Mar
8
There are many ‘management gurus’ out there who will all insist that they are complete experts when it comes to the supply chain and if you buy their service/if you buy their book then you will be empowered with better decision-making abilities. In reality, however, there is little requirement for magic. Decision making is primarily about utilizing information and there is much that you can do to improve your decision making through appropriate use of Tools /data, performance management, requirements definition and process.
Tools/Data
At its heart decision-making relies on data and if its one thing that Supply Chains are great at its in generating data. In most organizations the sheer volume of data that can be (note we did not say should be) analyzed is now immense. Most organizations will utilize an IT system of some regard. Each transaction that is created within that system will generate data. In order to facilitate better decision making its imperative that this data is utilized appropriately. While most corporate data is not without some issues (data integrity anyone?) utilizing appropriate tools (from Excel to dedicated software) data can be extracted and used to generate management reports.
Performance Management
Once you have the data the next step is three fold
1/ Understand what measures will add value and support decision making
2/ Utilize exception management
3/ Plan, do, check act
Given as we’ve stated the volume of data in most organizations (from number of suppliers to transaction levels) it would impossible to focus on everything. What’s important is to focus on the right thing. What matters to your business (from QCD style metrics to longer term forecasting) understand what can impact your business then ascertain how you will generate information on it.
As we’ve stated the sheer volume of data in most supply chains makes it impossible to analyze everything – what becomes important is monitoring what matters. For example if you looking make deicisons about your suppliers and your monitoring delivery performance – your focus should be on those suppliers that are failing to deliver on time and who contribute significantly to the overall performance.
Once you have understood what needs to be done utilize the Plan, Do Check, Act technique
• Plan your activity
• Do your activity,
• Check the performance
• Act accordingly.
Requirements definition
One of the most overlooked cornerstones of the supply chain is requirements definition – fail to clearly articulate what is needed from the supply chain and you’ll be pleasantly unsurprised in what you get back! Supply chain configuration requires adequate understanding of requirements full stop. You make decisions based on what you thing the business needs – the clearer that is the better decisions you’ll make.
Process
Finally, process has a key part to play in successful decision-making. Incorporating information from your activities can help underpin choices that your business makes. For example lots can also be learnt from examining past decision-making and its impact. Whilst it sounds clichéd, learning from past mistakes or things that have been beneficial in the past can be a key success factor for your business. There can be great mileage in examining past decisions and ascertain which have been successful and why using this method you can incorporate tried and trusted techniques into your processes.
Thus there are some fundamental approaches that can be utilized to ensure that better decisions are taken in the supply chain as a whole. It does require a leap of faith at times, especially with regard to flexibility, but that leap of faith can certainly ensure that only good decisions are made all the time and every time!
Mar
8
Is It Better To Recruit New Staff Or Promote From Within? Human Resources In The Supply Chain
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There are compelling arguments both for recruiting new staff to work in the supply chain and for promoting existing staff! This may seem like sitting on the fence, but in fact what is important is to recruit the right staff for your supply chain. While that may sound like a real cop out, but in fact there is sound sense when it comes to ensuring that sometimes you recruit new staff and sometimes you promote staff from within or even try to persuade staff to move horizontally within the company.
The arguments for recruiting new staff are well known. They are new blood, they can help to bring other experiences and skills into your supply chain. With regard to promoting existing staff, Benefits can range from retaining key employees, company knowledge and to dare I say it saving money on higher salaries of external recruits? Existing staff can be a safe and known pair of hands and there is the signal that internal promotions send out: namely that if you work hard, then you can be promoted.
Where the supply chain is going through change and the existing skill base within the company does not offer the right mix of knowledge and ability its far more common to choose the external recruit option. While this makes sound business sense there can be issues. After all, in this scenario, if you appoint someone who fails to gel within the team then you may well find that the appointment simply leads to further problems.
There can be a danger in many organizations where the HR process acts as a constraint. Artificial constraints such as ‘appointments must be from within’ can severely hamper rapid up-skilling. The right process is to determine the business need then establish the optimum method of recruitment. (in deed in some cases you may decide that while it is best to recruit from an external source – schedule constraints may require an interim assignment from either internal staff or a suitable experienced contractor.)
Obviously, no two appointments within the supply chain will ever be the same. Sometimes you may need someone with strong analytical skills, other times it may be the case that you need someone who is more commercially minded. But whatever happens you can be sure that you need to take the time out to ensure that you get the right person for that position. So it could be someone from the team or it could be someone completely new. But it has to be the right person for each post.