Dr. Edward F. Knab
Are There Weak Links in Your Supply Chain?
For over 20 years software companies have developed sophisticated technology tools to improve the coordination and control of material moving through the supply chain. Companies have purchased an enormous amount of technology promising end-to-end supply chain visibility; however, there remain a significant number of weak or broken links in the supply chain where shipments simply drop out of sight for considerable amounts of time. Most often organizations either ignore or deny the existence of these information gaps, however, inevitably these weak supply chain links results in excess inventory or poor customer service.
Over the past two decades North American companies have significantly increased their outsourced manufacturing to Chinese vendors. This trend has amplified the number of partners in the supply chain, the interdependencies of subcontractors and raw material suppliers, and the distance that material and information must travel to close this gap.
The information gaps in the form of weak supply chain links are most often found at the outer edges of the supply chain. Any time that raw materials, production parts or finished goods change hands is a potential for communication breakdown which have traditionally been addressed through expense internal enterprise resource planning system (ERP) rather than addressing them through collaboration with their trading partners. Of course, physical goods are not the only thing getting temporarily lost in the supply chain; financial flows and critical supply-chain data also contribute to organizations inability to manage their inventories.
Organizations need an information system that links disparate applications across multiple partners, languages, geographies and cultures. The emergence of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model in the form of project management and collaboration tools is a positive step in the right direction because it gives everyone in the supply chain and opportunity to identify these weak links and take action to mitigate their impact. However, today there is a plethora should note these tools all with different capabilities and degrees of difficulty in terms of implementation.
If you or your organization would like some help identifying weak links in your supply chain and identifying the appropriate collaboration tools necessary to fill those gaps contact a Supply Chain Expert, their motto is “you are only as good as your weakest link”. They can help you design a program that delivers both immediate and long term benefits to your organization. The program will be designed to shift your organizations thinking, improve innovation, and implement a program that will optimize operational performance and satisfy the requirements of your customers.
Dr. Edward F. Knab
Productivity Constructs, Inc.
800 660 8718 office
949 413 7333 mobile
ed@edwardknab.com
www.productivityconstructs.com
Free Supply Chain Intelligence Reports
Dr. Knab is an academic practitioner and seasoned supply chain expert whose company, Productivity Constructs, Inc., is focused improving global leadership and thereby creating more effective organizations and higher levels of job satisfaction. Dr. Knab can be contacted for speaking engagements, coaching, or consultation at efk@productivityconstructs.com, mailto:ed@ewardknab.com or www.edwardknab.com.
Tags: Chain, EMS, ERP, Software, Supply, efficiency, information
Why Hire a Consultant?
In the complex environment of business “usually, there is more than one approach or solution available to most any problem”. The identification of potential solutions is normally affected by time, resources, and knowledge. There can be a range from short-term solutions to long-term solutions; the financial considerations can range from minimal cost to significant cost, and similarly, knowledge can range from the organization needing little to requiring significant amounts of new knowledge.
Knowing the client and client’s organization is essential for two reasons; one concerns what advice is given, and the other affects how the advice is given. The first is about substance, and the second about process. Good advice must always meet the client’s needs and circumstances, and the client is usually the best source of that information. A second reason for knowing your client’s needs and concerns is the manner in which the consultant goes about giving advice. An effective advisor or consultant shapes the process to fit the client’s abilities and background and to do that, he/she must know the client’s requirements. A relationship can develop only if the consultant and the client know something about each other. Effective consulting requires a good working relationship.
The process of identifying the appropriate solution to any problem can only come after some form of due diligence or discovery. A consultant must understand the problem and issues thoroughly; he/she must consider the perspective of the client as well as understanding what the potential solutions will mean to the organization. One of the primary roles of a consultant is to help the client define the problem. In many cases clients have not defined the problem accurately; which resulted in their inability to resolve the issues and caused them to solicit help from consultants. Appropriately understanding the problem is an essential element for developing effective solutions.
Productivity Improvements
A the major challenge for any business is how to continuously improve productivity. This must be an ongoing process designed into the culture of the organization.
If your productivity per employment is stagnant you can be certain that your competition is not. Failure to meet targeted productivity can result to high costs per unit, hence higher prices, making your good, services, or commodities not competitive enough in the market place. Many businesses try very hard to remain competitive in the market. Therefore, it is important for businesses to implement strategies to make improvements in productivity levels. Businesses can make productivity improvement by asking themselves the following questions:
About the Business itself:
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Research and Analysis – Has the business done any research on the targeted markets and analyze the result on the approaches best fit?
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Smart Investment – Has the business calculated the amount of financial resources available to allocate to research and analysis, production cost, labor cost, and marketing?
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Productive Risks – Are there any risks that the company should know of during production?
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Innovation and Originality - Is your product something original and in a new market?
About Employee:
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Safe and Friendly Work Environment – What sort of environment are you providing your employees?
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Use of Employees – Is the business maximizing its' use of employees to best suit the business needs?
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Employee Knowledge – How familiar (what knowledge) are your employee with the running of machines/equipment, products of the companies? Does employee require training?
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Employee Happiness - Are the employees happy with their wages, rewards and hours of work given?
All these factors mention above will assist you and your business to strive to achieve your target.
Leadership
Leaders who can stay optimistic and upbeat, even under intense pressure, radiate the positive feelings that create resonance. By staying in control of their feelings and impulses,they craft an environment of trust, comfort, and fairness. Not surprisingly, self-management is also important for competitive reasons. In the current ambiguous environment, where companies continually emerge and break apart and technology transforms work at a dizzying pace, leaders who have mastered their emotions are better able to roll with the changes and help the organization adjust to the dynamics of the market place. Self-management also enables transparency, which is not only a leadership virtue but also an organizational strength. Transparency--an authentic and veracious openness to others about one's feelings, beliefs, and actions-- allows integrity or the sense that a leaders can be trusted. In a trust-based environment,integrity hinges on impulse control, keeping us from acting in ways that we might regret. Integrity also means that a leader lives his values. Such leaders strike others as genuine because they are not making a pretense of being other than they are. Live in the moment of today with an eye to the future and a reflection of the past.
Discovering your veracious leadership requires a commitment to developing yourself. Like musicians and athletes, you must devote yourself to a lifetime of realizing your potential. The advice I give to individuals in our company is not to expect the company to hand you a development plan. You need to take responsibility for developing yourself.
Are you a leader?
What does it take to be a leader?
What does it mean to be a leader?
Who can help me become a better leader?
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We concentrate on people's strengths. Some other cookie cutter approaches teach people to put on masks - to act in certain prescribed ways. We take the opposite approach. We help your leaders to develop the best of their authentic selves.
Whether this is through training, assessment feedback or leadership coaching, we help people to understand themselves, to know their strengths, and then to build upon those strengths to become effective leaders in a way that is true to who they are.. to what they stand for... and to how they intend to lead.
After a multi-dimensional assessment of each person's leadership talent, we map out a path for leadership development
Through our one-on-one coaching process, leaders learn to build upon their strengths and develop their skills in the way that is most effective for them. This is normally a six-to twelve-month undertaking. Coaching sessions are held by telephone or in person twice per month.
In organizations, success as a leader is measured by the degree to which we’ve mastered the external environment and delivered results in the form of revenues, profits, new product breakthroughs, cost savings, or market share increases.
External results, of course, are important. But trying to define leadership by its external manifestations misses the core question: What is the essence of leadership—the foundation that underlies external success and achievement?
Leadership is not simply something we do. It comes from somewhere inside us. Leadership is a process, an intimate expression of who we are. It’s our being in action. At its deepest level, leadership is authentic self-expression that creates value.
Core Principles
Viewing leadership from this essential vantage point, we can see there are three core principles to guide us:
Are we Veracious? Blog: http://edwardknab.spaces.live.com