TEAMFLYESSENTIALSof Supply Chain
Management

Essentials Series
The Essentials Series was created for busy business advisory and corporate
professionals.The books in this series were designed so that these busy professionals can quickly acquire knowledge and skills in core business areas.
Each book provides need-to-have fundamentals for those professionals who must:Get up to speed quickly, because they have been promoted to a
new position or have broadened their responsibility scopeManage a new functional area
Brush up on new developments in their area of responsibility
Add more value to their company or clients

•
•
•
•

Other books in this series include:
Essentials of Accounts Payable, by Mary S. Schaeffer
Essentials of Capacity Management, by Reginald Tomas Yu-Lee
Essentials of Cash Flow, by H.A. Schaeffer, Jr.
Essentials of Corporate Performance Measurement, by George T.
Friedlob, Lydia L.F. Schleifer, and Franklin J. Plewa, Jr.
Essentials of Cost Management, by Joe and Catherine Stenzel
Essentials of CRM: A Guide to Customer RelationshipManagement, by Bryan Bergeron
Essentials of Credit, Collections, and Accounts Receivable,by Mary S. Schaeffer
Essentials of Financial Analysis, by George T. Friedlob andLydia L.F. Schleifer
Essentials of Intellectual Property, by Paul J. Lerner andAlexander I. Poltorak
Essentials of Shared Services, by Bryan Bergeron
Essentials of Trademarks and Unfair Competition, by Dana Shilling
Essentials of XBRL: Financial Reporting in the 21st Century,by Miklos A.Vasarhelyi, Liv A.Watson, Brian L. McGuire, andRajendra P. Srivastava

For more information on any of the above titles, please visit
www.wiley.com.

ESSENTIALSof Supply Chain
Management
Michael Hugos

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. ¥Copyright © 2003 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or
108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the priorwritten permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of
the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.,
222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-750-4470,
or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission
should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008,
e-mail: permcoordinator@wiley.com.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty:While the publisher and author haveused their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations
or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents ofthis book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended bysales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with aprofessional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable
for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but notlimited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services, or technical support,
please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at
800-762-2974, outside the United States at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content
that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site atwww.wiley.com.
ISBN 0-471-23517-2
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my wife,Venetia

Contents
Prefaceviii

Acknowledgmentsx

1

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management12

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

43

3Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

774

Supply Chain Coordination and Use of Technology

103

5

Measuring Performance: Supply Chain Metrics

137

6

Defining Supply Chain Opportunities

173

7

Developing Supply Chain Systems

207

8

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

235

Additional Resources

249

Index

251

Prefacell around us the networking and inter-networking of our economy
is taking place. Companies that do business together are linking up
electronically. They are doing this to better coordinate their actions
and drive costs out of their business operations.
Business in this emerging networked world is as much about process
as it is about product. This is because market forces, driven by the speedof communications that electronic networks now make possible, aremaking product life cycles shorter and shorter. Customer tastes andrequirements change quickly. Product inventories are always in danger of
becoming obsolete.
To counter this trend, companies are building up their expertise andefficiencies in the process of designing and building new products and in
the process of delivering and servicing existing products. Companies thatdevelop higher skill levels in these areas are clearly better able to ride thewaves of change and profit from developments in the markets they serve.
The processes involved in the designing, building, and delivering ofproducts to the customers that need them have come to be collectively
referred to as supply chain management. No one company can develop
high skill levels in all areas of supply chain management so companies
are focusing on developing and building their particular strengths, theircore competencies. Companies are defining the roles they want to playin the markets they serve and linking up with other companies thathave complementary skill sets. This is the dynamic that is driving theformation of modern supply chains.

A

viii

Preface

This book is written especially for two groups of readers. It is written for the senior executive who must decide what kind of supply
chain their organization needs and how much to spend to get it. It isalso written for the manager who is or soon will be responsible forbuilding and operating some part of his/her company’s supply chain.
The concepts and techniques presented here serve to create a common
frame of reference that both senior executives and line managers canuse when communicating with each other about supply chain management issues.
Chapters 1–3 provide an executive overview of the basic principles
and the business operations that drive supply chain performance.
Chapters 4–5 present techniques, technologies, and metrics to use incoordinating your operations with those of your supply chain partners.
In Chapters 6 and 7 there is a pragmatic approach to use for defining
supply chain opportunities and for designing and building the systems
needed to effectively respond to those opportunities. The last chapter,
Chapter 8, outlines the profit potential now available to companies thatlearn to harness the power of the real-time supply chain.

ix

Acknowledgments
n numerous places in this book you will see mention made of a company named Network Services Company or “Network” for short.
Network (http://www.nsconline.com) is a national cooperative ofdistribution companies who service national and local customers all over
North America. I am Network’s Chief Information Officer and have
had the opportunity these last several years to help the company design,build, and deploy a suite of supply chain management and e-businesssystems. These systems help us ride the wave of business developments
now shaping the markets we serve.We take an utterly pragmatic approachto this undertaking. We have succeeded more often than not and havelearned much along the way.
I would like to thank the Network member companies who are also
the owners of the organization.Without their backing and active participation there would be no success. I would like to thank the management
and staff of Network itself. They have built an outstanding company
that I am privileged to be a part of. I wish to give special thanks to the
managers and staff of the Information Technology groups of Network
and its member companies. They have done amazing things.
I am indebted (more than I even know) to my wife Venetia. She
patiently supported me while I wrote this book. She became a weekend widow as I secluded myself in my study to write these pages. She readchapters, kept me from going off on tangents, and provided sound advice.
I want to thank my friend Percy for all his input and assistance. Also
thank you to my friend Kelly David—his recent CD often provided themusic I needed to find the way through to the end of this book.

TE

AM
FL
Y

I

x

CHAPTER 1

Basic Concepts ofSupply Chain Management
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Appreciate what a supply chain is and what it does
• Define the different organizations that participate in any
supply chain• Discuss ways to align your supply chain with your businessstrategy• Start an intelligent conversation about the supply chain
management issues in your company

upply chains encompass the companies and the business activities
needed to design, make, deliver, and use a product or service.
Businesses depend on their supply chains to provide them withwhat they need to survive and thrive. Every business fits into one ormore supply chains and has a role to play in each of them.
The pace of change and the uncertainty about how markets will
evolve has made it increasingly important for companies to be aware of
the supply chains they participate in and to understand the roles thatthey play. Those companies that learn how to build and participate instrong supply chains will have a substantial competitive advantage intheir markets.

S

1

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

N othing Entirely New. . . Just a Significant Evolution
The practice of supply chain management is guided by some basic
underlying concepts that have not changed much over the centuries.
Several hundred years ago, Napoleon made the remark, “An army
marches on its stomach.” Napoleon was a master strategist and a skillful
general and this remark shows that he clearly understood the importance of what we would now call an efficient supply chain. Unless thesoldiers are fed, the army cannot move.
Along these same lines, there is another saying that goes,“Amateurs
talk strategy and professionals talk logistics.” People can discuss all sorts
of grand strategies and dashing maneuvers but none of that will be possible without first figuring out how to meet the day-to-day demands ofproviding an army with fuel, spare parts, food, shelter, and ammunition.
It is the seemingly mundane activities of the quartermaster and the supply
sergeants that often determine an army’s success. This has many analogies
in business.
The term “supply chain management” arose in the late 1980s andcame into widespread use in the 1990s. Prior to that time, businesses used
terms such as “logistics” and “operations management” instead. Somedefinitions of a supply chain are offered below:“A supply chain is the alignment of firms that bring products
or services to market.”—from Lambert, Stock, and Ellramin their book Fundamentals of Logistics Management (Lambert,
Douglas M., James R. Stock, and Lisa M. Ellram, 1998,
Fundamentals of Logistics Management, Boston, MA:
Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Chapter 14)•• “A supply chain consists of all stages involved, directly or

indirectly, in fulfilling a customer request. The supply chain
not only includes the manufacturer and suppliers, but alsotransporters, warehouses, retailers, and customers themselves.”—from Chopra and Meindl in their book Supply
2Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operations (Chopra,
Sunil, and Peter Meindl, 2001, Supply Chain Management:
Strategy, Planning, and Operations, Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, Inc. Chapter 1).

• “A supply chain is a network of facilities and distribution

options that performs the functions of procurement ofmaterials, transformation of these materials into intermediate
and finished products, and the distribution of these finishedproducts to customers.”—from Ganeshan and Harrison
at Penn State University in their article An Introduction
to Supply Chain Management published at
http://silmaril.smeal.psu.edu/supply_chain_intro.html(Ganeshan, Ram, and Terry P. Harrison, 1995, “AnIntroduction to Supply Chain Management,” Department ofManagement Sciences and Information Systems, 303 BeamBusiness Building, Penn State University, University Park, PA).

If this is what a supply chain is then we can define supply chain management as the things we do to influence the behavior of the supply chain
and get the results we want. Some definitions of supply chain management are:
“The systemic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and the tactics across these business functions
within a particular company and across businesses within the
supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long-term
performance of the individual companies and the supply chain
as a whole.”—from Mentzer, DeWitt, Deebler, Min, Nix,
Smith, and Zacharia in their article Defining Supply Chain
Management in the Journal of Business Logistics (Mentzer, John
T.,William DeWitt, James S. Keebler, Soonhong Min, Nancy
W. Nix, Carlo D. Smith, and Zach G. Zacharia, 2001,“Defining Supply Chain Management,” Journal of Business
Logistics,Vol. 22, No. 2, p. 18).

•

3

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management• “Supply chain management is the coordination of production,
inventory, location, and transportation among the participantsin a supply chain to achieve the best mix of responsivenessand efficiency for the market being served.”—my own words.

There is a difference between the concept of supply chain management and the traditional concept of logistics. Logistics typically refers toactivities that occur within the boundaries of a single organization andsupply chains refer to networks of companies that work together andcoordinate their actions to deliver a product to market. Also traditional
logistics focuses its attention on activities such as procurement, distribution,
maintenance, and inventory management. Supply chain management
acknowledges all of traditional logistics and also includes activities such as
marketing, new product development, finance, and customer service.
In the wider view of supply chain thinking, these additional activities
are now seen as part of the work needed to fulfill customer requests.
Supply chain management views the supply chain and the organizationsin it as a single entity. It brings a systems approach to understanding andmanaging the different activities needed to coordinate the flow of products
and services to best serve the ultimate customer. This systems approachprovides the framework in which to best respond to business requirements that otherwise would seem to be in conflict with each other.
Taken individually, different supply chain requirements often haveconflicting needs. For instance, the requirement of maintaining high levelsof customer service calls for maintaining high levels of inventory, but thenthe requirement to operate efficiently calls for reducing inventory levels. It
is only when these requirements are seen together as parts of a larger picture that ways can be found to effectively balance their different demands.
Effective supply chain management requires simultaneous improvements in both customer service levels and the internal operating efficiencies of the companies in the supply chain. Customer service at its
4

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

most basic level means consistently high order fill rates, high on-time
delivery rates, and a very low rate of products returned by customers
for whatever reason. Internal efficiency for organizations in a supply
chain means that these organizations get an attractive rate of return on
their investments in inventory and other assets and that they find ways
to lower their operating and sales expenses.
There is a basic pattern to the practice of supply chain management. Each supply chain has its own unique set of market demands andoperating challenges and yet the issues remain essentially the same inevery case. Companies in any supply chain must make decisions individually and collectively regarding their actions in five areas:
1. Production—What products does the market want? How much ofwhich products should be produced and by when? This activity
includes the creation of master production schedules that take
into account plant capacities, workload balancing, quality control,and equipment maintenance.
2. Inventory—What inventory should be stocked at each stage in a

supply chain? How much inventory should be held as raw materials, semifinished, or finished goods? The primary purpose of
inventory is to act as a buffer against uncertainty in the supply
chain. However, holding inventory can be expensive, so what are
the optimal inventory levels and reorder points?
3. Location—Where should facilities for production and inventory

storage be located? Where are the most cost efficient locations
for production and for storage of inventory? Should existing
facilities be used or new ones built? Once these decisions are
made they determine the possible paths available for product toflow through for delivery to the final consumer.

5

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

4. Transportation—How should inventory be moved from one supply

chain location to another? Air freight and truck delivery are generally fast and reliable but they are expensive. Shipping by sea or rail
is much less expensive but usually involves longer transit times
and more uncertainty. This uncertainty must be compensated forby stocking higher levels of inventory. When is it better to use
which mode of transportation?
5. Information—How much data should be collected and how muchinformation should be shared? Timely and accurate information
holds the promise of better coordination and better decision making.With good information, people can make effective decisions
about what to produce and how much, about where to locate
inventory and how best to transport it.
The sum of these decisions will define the capabilities and effectiveness of a company’s supply chain. The things a company can do andthe ways that it can compete in its markets are all very much dependent on the effectiveness of its supply chain. If a company’s strategy is toserve a mass market and compete on the basis of price, it had better havea supply chain that is optimized for low cost. If a company’s strategy is
to serve a market segment and compete on the basis of customer service and convenience, it had better have a supply chain optimized for
responsiveness. Who a company is and what it can do is shaped by its
supply chain and by the markets it serves.

H ow the Supply Chain Works
Two influential source books that define principles and practice of supply chain management are The Goal (Goldratt, Eliyahu M., 1984, The
Goal, Great Barrington, MA: The North River Press Publishing
Corporation); and Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, andOperation by Sunil Chopra and Peter Meindl. The Goal explores the6Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

IN THE REAL WORLD

Alexander the Great based his strategies and campaigns on his army’s unique capabilities and these weremade possible by effective supply chain management.
In the spirit of the saying, “amateurs talk strategy and professionals
talk logistics,” let’s look at the campaigns of Alexander the Great.
For those who think that his greatness was only due to his ability to
dream up bold moves and cut a dashing figure in the saddle, thinkagain. Alexander was a master of supply chain management and hecould not have succeeded otherwise. The authors from Greek andRoman times who recorded his deeds had little to say about something so apparently unglamourous as how he secured supplies forhis army. Yet, from these same sources, many little details can bepieced together to show the overall supply chain picture and how
Alexander managed it. A modern historian, Donald Engels, hasinvestigated this topic in his book Alexander the Great and the
Logistics of the Macedonian Army (Engles, Donald W., 1978,
Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army,
Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press).
He begins by pointing out that given the conditions and the technology that existed in Alexander’s time, his strategy and tactics had
to be very closely tied to his ability to get supplies and to run a lean,efficient organization. The only way to transport large amounts ofmaterial over long distances was by ocean-going ships or by barges
on rivers and canals. Once away from rivers and sea coasts, anarmy had to be able to live off the land over which it traveled.
Diminishing returns set in quickly when using pack animals andcarts to haul supplies because the animals themselves had to eat
and would soon consume all the food and water they were haulingunless they could graze along the way.
Alexander’s army was able to achieve its brilliant successes because
it managed its supply chain so well. The army had a logistics structure

7

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
that was fundamentally different from other armies of the time. In
other armies the number of support people and camp followers wasoften as large as the number of actual fighting soldiers because
armies traveled with huge numbers of carts and pack animals tocarry their equipment and provisions, as well as the people needed
to tend them. In the Macedonian army the use of carts was severly
restricted. Soldiers were trained to carry their own equipment andprovisions. Other contemporary armies did not require their soldiers
to carry such heavy burdens but they paid for this because theresulting baggage trains reduced their speed and mobility.
The result of the Macedonian army’s logistics structure was that it
became the fastest, lightest, and most mobile army of its time. It wascapable of making lightning strikes against an opponent often before
they were even aware of what was happening. Because the army wasable to move quickly and suddenly, Alexander could use this capability to devise strategies and employ tactics that allowed him to surprise and overwhelm enemies that were numerically much larger.
The picture that emerges of how Alexander managed his supply
chain is an interesting one. For instance, time and again the historical sources mention that before he entered a new territory, hewould receive the surrender of its ruler and arrange in advance withlocal officials for the supplies his army would need. If a region did
not surrender to him in advance, Alexander would not commit his
entire army to a campaign in that land. He would not risk putting hisarmy in a situation where it could be crippled or destroyed by a lackof provisions. Instead, he would gather intelligence about theroutes, the resources, and the climate of the region and then set off
with a small, light force to surprise his opponent. The main army
would remain behind at a well-stocked base until Alexander secured
adequate supplies for it to follow.
Whenever the army set up a new base it looked for an area that provided easy access to a navigable river or a seaport. Then ships

8Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
would arrive from other parts of Alexander’s empire bringing in large
amounts of supplies. The army always stayed in its winter campuntil the first spring harvest of the new year so that food supplies
would be available. When it marched, it avoided dry or uninhabitedareas and moved through river valleys and populated regions whenever possible so the horses could graze and the army could requisition supplies along the route.
Alexander had a deep understanding of the capabilities and limitations of his supply chain. He learned well how to formulate strategies and use tactics that built upon the unique strengths that his
logistics and supply chain capabilities gave him and he wisely took
measures to compensate for the limitations of his supply chain. His
opponents often outnumbered him and were usually fighting on theirown home territory. Yet their advantages were undermined by clumsy and inefficient supply chains that restricted their ability to act andlimited their options for opposing Alexander’s moves.

issues and provides answers to the problem of optimizing operations inany business system whether it be manufacturing, mortgage loan processing, or supply chain management. Supply Chain Management: Strategy,
Planning, and Operation is an in-depth presentation of the concepts andtechniques of the profession. Much of the material presented in thischapter and in the next two chapters can be found in greater detail inthese two books.
The goal or mission of supply chain management can be definedusing Mr. Goldratt’s words as “Increase throughput while simultaneously
reducing both inventory and operating expense.” In this definition
throughput refers to the rate at which sales to the end customer occur.
Depending on the market being served, sales or throughput occurs fordifferent reasons. In some markets customers value and will pay for high9

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Production

AM
FL
Y

levels of service. In other markets customers seek simply the lowest
price for an item.
As we saw in the previous section, there are five areas where companies can make decisions that will define their supply chain capabilities:
Production; Inventory; Location; Transportation; and Information. Chopra
and Meindl define these areas as performance drivers that can be managed
to produce the capabilities needed for a given supply chain.
Effective supply chain management calls first for an understandingof each driver and how it operates. Each driver has the ability to directly
affect the supply chain and enable certain capabilities. The next step is todevelop an appreciation for the results that can be obtained by mixing
different combinations of these drivers. Let’s start by looking at thedrivers individually.

TE

Production refers to the capacity of a supply chain to make and store
products. The facilities of production are factories and warehouses. The
fundamental decision that managers face when making production
decisions is how to resolve the trade-off between responsiveness andefficiency. If factories and warehouses are built with a lot of excess
capacity, they can be very flexible and respond quickly to wide swings
in product demand. Facilities where all or almost all capacity is being
used are not capable of responding easily to fluctuations in demand. On
the other hand, capacity costs money and excess capacity is idle capacity
not in use and not generating revenue. So the more excess capacity thatexists, the less efficient the operation becomes.
Factories can be built to accommodate one of two approaches tomanufacturing:
1. Product focus—A factory that takes a product focus performs therange of different operations required to make a given product10Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

line from fabrication of different product parts to assembly ofthese parts.
2. Functional focus—A functional approach concentrates on per-forming just a few operations such as only making a select groupof parts or only doing assembly. These functions can be applied
to making many different kinds of products.
A product approach tends to result in developing expertise about agiven set of products at the expense of expertise about any particularfunction. A functional approach results in expertise about particular functions instead of expertise in a given product. Companies need to decide
which approach or what mix of these two approaches will give them thecapability and expertise they need to best respond to customer demands.
As with factories, warehouses too can be built to accommodate different approaches. There are three main approaches to use in warehousing:
1. Stock keeping unit (SKU) storage—In this traditional approach, allof a given type of product is stored together. This is an efficientand easy to understand way to store products.
2. Job lot storage—In this approach, all the different products related

to the needs of a certain type of customer or related to the needsof a particular job are stored together. This allows for an efficient
picking and packing operation but usually requires more storage
space than the traditional SKU storage approach.
3. Crossdocking—An approach that was pioneered by Wal-Mart inits drive to increase efficiencies in its supply chain. In this approach,product is not actually warehoused in the facility. Instead thefacility is used to house a process where trucks from suppliers
arrive and unload large quantities of different products. These
11

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

large lots are then broken down into smaller lots. Smaller lots ofdifferent products are recombined according to the needs of the
day and quickly loaded onto outbound trucks that deliver the
products to their final destination.

Inventory
Inventory is spread throughout the supply chain and includes everything from raw material to work in process to finished goods that areheld by the manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in a supply chain.
Again, managers must decide where they want to position themselvesin the trade-off between responsiveness and efficiency. Holding large
amounts of inventory allows a company or an entire supply chain to bevery responsive to fluctuations in customer demand. However, the creation and storage of inventory is a cost and to achieve high levels of
efficiency, the cost of inventory should be kept as low as possible.
There are three basic decisions to make regarding the creation andholding of inventory:
1. Cycle Inventory—This is the amount of inventory needed to sat-

isfy demand for the product in the period between purchases ofthe product. Companies tend to produce and to purchase in large
lots in order to gain the advantages that economies of scale canbring. However, with large lots also comes increased carrying
costs. Carrying costs come from the cost to store, handle, andinsure the inventory. Managers face the trade-off between the
reduced cost of ordering and better prices offered by purchasing
product in large lots and the increased carrying cost of the cycle
inventory that comes with purchasing in large lots.
2. Safety Inventory—Inventory that is held as a buffer against uncer-

tainty. If demand forecasting could be done with perfect accuracy,

12

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

then the only inventory that would be needed would be cycle
inventory. But since every forecast has some degree of uncertainty in it, we cover that uncertainty to a greater or lesser degree
by holding additional inventory in case demand is suddenly
greater than anticipated. The trade-off here is to weigh the costsof carrying extra inventory against the costs of losing sales due
to insufficient inventory.
3. Seasonal Inventory—This is inventory that is built up in anticipa-tion of predictable increases in demand that occur at certain
times of the year. For example, it is predictable that demand foranti-freeze will increase in the winter. If a company that makes
anti-freeze has a fixed production rate that is expensive tochange, then it will try to manufacture product at a steady rate
all year long and build up inventory during periods of low
demand to cover for periods of high demand that will exceed its
production rate. The alternative to building up seasonal inventory
is to invest in flexible manufacturing facilities that can quickly
change their rate of production of different products to respondto increases in demand. In this case, the trade-off is between thecost of carrying seasonal inventory and the cost of having more
flexible production capabilities.

Location
Location refers to the geographical siting of supply chain facilities. It
also includes the decisions related to which activities should be performed in each facility. The responsiveness versus efficiency trade-off
here is the decision whether to centralize activities in fewer locations togain economies of scale and efficiency, or to decentralize activities inmany locations close to customers and suppliers in order for operations
to be more responsive.
13

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

When making location decisions, managers need to consider arange of factors that relate to a given location including the cost of
facilities, the cost of labor, skills available in the workforce, infrastructure
conditions, taxes and tariffs, and proximity to suppliers and customers.
Location decisions tend to be very strategic decisions because they
commit large amounts of money to long-term plans.
Location decisions have strong impacts on the cost and performance
characteristics of a supply chain. Once the size, number, and location offacilities is determined, that also defines the number of possible paths
through which products can flow on the way to the final customer.
Location decisions reflect a company’s basic strategy for building anddelivering its products to market.

Transportation
This refers to the movement of everything from raw material to finishedgoods between different facilities in a supply chain. In transportation
the trade-off between responsiveness and efficiency is manifested in the
choice of transport mode. Fast modes of transport such as airplanes arevery responsive but also more costly. Slower modes such as ship and rail
are very cost efficient but not as responsive. Since transportation costs canbe as much as a third of the operating cost of a supply chain, decisions
made here are very important.
There are six basic modes of transport that a company can choose
from:
1. Ship which is very cost efficient but also the slowest mode oftransport. It is limited to use between locations that are situatednext to navigable waterways and facilities such as harbors and canals.
2. Rail which is also very cost efficient but can be slow. This mode isalso restricted to use between locations that are served by rail lines.

14

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

3. Pipelines can be very efficient but are restricted to commodities

that are liquids or gases such as water, oil, and natural gas.
4. Trucks are a relatively quick and very flexible mode of transport.

Trucks can go almost anywhere. The cost of this mode is prone
to fluctuations though, as the cost of fuel fluctuates and the condition of roads varies.
5. Airplanes are a very fast mode of transport and are very respon-

sive. This is also the most expensive mode and it is somewhat
limited by the availability of appropriate airport facilities.
6. Electronic Transport is the fastest mode of transport and it is very

flexible and cost efficient. However, it can only be used for movement of certain types of products such as electric energy, data,and products composed of data such as music, pictures, and text.
Someday technology that allows us to convert matter to energy
and back to matter again may completely rewrite the theory andpractice of supply chain management (“beam me up, Scotty. . .”).
Given these different modes of transportation and the location of
the facilities in a supply chain, managers need to design routes and networks for moving products. A route is the path through which products move and networks are composed of the collection of the paths
and facilities connected by those paths. As a general rule, the higher thevalue of a product (such as electronic components or pharmaceuticals),the more its transport network should emphasize responsiveness andthe lower the value of a product (such as bulk commodities like grain
or lumber), the more its network should emphasize efficiency.

Information
Information is the basis upon which to make decisions regarding theother four supply chain drivers. It is the connection between all of the15

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

activities and operations in a supply chain. To the extent that this connection is a strong one, (i.e., the data is accurate, timely, and complete),the companies in a supply chain will each be able to make good decisions for their own operations. This will also tend to maximize theprofitability of the supply chain as a whole. That is the way that stock
markets or other free markets work and supply chains have many of thesame dynamics as markets.
Information is used for two purposes in any supply chain:
1. Coordinating daily activities related to the functioning of the otherfour supply chain drivers: production; inventory; location; andtransportation. The companies in a supply chain use available
data on product supply and demand to decide on weekly production schedules, inventory levels, transportation routes, andstocking locations.
2. Forecasting and planning to anticipate and meet future demands.

Available information is used to make tactical forecasts to guidethe setting of monthly and quarterly production schedules andtimetables. Information is also used for strategic forecasts toguide decisions about whether to build new facilities, enter a
new market, or exit an existing market.
Within an individual company the trade-off between responsiveness and efficiency involves weighing the benefits that good information
can provide against the cost of acquiring that information. Abundant,
accurate information can enable very efficient operating decisions andbetter forecasts but the cost of building and installing systems to deliver
this information can be very high.
Within the supply chain as a whole, the responsiveness versus efficiency trade-off that companies make is one of deciding how much information to share with the other companies and how much information
16

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUESThe Five Major
Supply Chain Drivers

Each market or group of customers has a specific set of needs. The
supply chains that serve different markets need to respond effectively to these needs. Some markets demand and will pay for highlevels of responsiveness. Other markets require their supply chains
to focus more on efficiency. The overall effect of the decisions madeconcerning each driver will determine how well the supply chain
serves its market and how profitable it is for the participants in that
supply chain.

17

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

to keep private. The more information about product supply, customer
demand, market forecasts, and production schedules that companies
share with each other, the more responsive everyone can be. Balancing
this openness however, are the concerns that each company has about
revealing information that could be used against it by a competitor. The
potential costs associated with increased competition can hurt the profitability of a company.

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Wal-Mart is a company shaped by its supply chain
and the efficiency of its supply chain has made it a leader
in the markets it serves.
Sam Walton decided to build a company that would serve a mass
market and compete on the basis of price. He did this by creating
one of the world’s most efficient supply chains. The structure andoperations of this company have been defined by the need to lower
its costs and increase its productivity so that it could pass these savings on to its customers in the form of lower prices. The techniquesthat Wal-Mart pioneered are now being widely adopted by its competitors and by other companies serving entirely different markets.
Wal-Mart introduced concepts that are now industry standards. Manyof these concepts come directly from the way the company builds
and operates its supply chain. Let’s look at four such concepts:
The strategy of expanding around distribution centers (DCs)
Using electronic data interchange (EDI) with suppliers
The “big box” store format“Everyday low prices”

18Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
The strategy of expanding around DCs is central to the way Wal-Mart
enters a new geographical market. The company looks for areasthat can support a group of new stores, not just a single new store.
It then builds a new DC at a central location in the area and opens
its first store at the same time. The DC is the supply chain bridgehead into the new territory. It supports the opening of more newstores in the area at a very low additional cost. Those savings are
passed along to the customers.
The use of EDI with suppliers provides the company two substantial
benefits. First of all this cuts the transaction costs associated withthe ordering of products and the paying of invoices. Ordering products and paying invoices are, for the most part, well defined and routine processes that can be made very productive and efficientthrough EDI. The second benefit is that these electronic links with
suppliers allow Wal-Mart a high degree of control and coordinationin the scheduling and receiving of product deliveries. This helps toensure a steady flow of the right products at the right time, delivered
to the right DCs, by all Wal-Mart suppliers.
The big box store format allows Wal-Mart to, in effect, combine astore and a warehouse in a single facility and get great operating
efficiencies from doing so. The big box is big enough to hold large
amounts of inventory like a warehouse. And since this inventory is
being held at the same location where the customer buys it, there
is no delay or cost that would otherwise be associated with moving
products from warehouse to store. Again, these savings are passedalong to the customer.
Everyday low prices are a way of doing two things. The first thing is
to tell its price-conscious customers that they will always get thebest price. They need not look elsewhere or wait for special sales.
The effect of this message to customers helps Wal-Mart do thesecond thing, which is to accurately forecast product sales. By
eliminating special sales and assuring customers of low prices, it

19

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
smoothes out demand swings making demand more steady andpredictable. This way stores are more likely to have what customers
want when they want it.
Taken individually, these four concepts are each useful but their real
power comes from being used in connection with each other. They
combine to form a supply chain that drives a self-reinforcing business process. Each concept builds on the strengths of the others tocreate a powerful business model for a company that has grown tobecome a dominant player in its markets.

AM
FL
Y

There seem to be some similarities between Wal-Mart and Alexander
the Great.

The Evolving Structure of Supply Chains

TE

The participants in a supply chain are continuously making decisions
that affect how they manage the five supply chain drivers. Each organization tries to maximize its performance in dealing with these drivers
through a combination of outsourcing, partnering, and in-house expertise.
In the fast-moving markets of our present economy a company usually
will focus on what it considers to be its core competencies in supply
chain management and outsource the rest.
This was not always the case though. In the slower moving mass
markets of the industrial age it was common for successful companies
to attempt to own much of their supply chain. That was known as vertical integration. The aim of vertical integration was to gain maximum
efficiency through economies of scale (see Exhibit 1.1).
In the first half of the 1900s Ford Motor Company owned muchof what it needed to feed its car factories. It owned and operated iron20Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 1.1

Old Supply Chains versus New
Vertically integrated companies serving slow-moving mass markets
once attempted to own much of their supply chains. Today’s fastmoving markets require more flexible and responsive supply chains.

Divisions of a
Vertically Integrated
Conglomerate

Verticalintegration
has given way
to “virtual
integration.”

Raw Material

Companies
now focus on
their corecompetencies,
and partnerwith othercompanies tocreate supply
chains forfast-moving
markets.

Transportation

Manufacturing

Distribution

Raw Materials
Company

Transportation
Company

Manufacturing
Company

Independent
Distributor

Retail Showroom
Independent
Retailer

Fragmented,
Fast-Moving
Markets

Slow-Moving, Industrial
Mass Markets

21

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

mines that extracted iron ore, steel mills that turned the ore into steel
products, plants that made component car parts, and assembly plantsthat turned out finished cars. In addition, they owned farms where they
grew flax to make into linen car tops and forests that they logged andsawmills where they cut the timber into lumber for making wooden car
parts. Ford’s famous River Rouge Plant was a monument to vertical
integration—iron ore went in at one end and cars came out at the otherend. Henry Ford in his 1926 autobiography, Today and Tomorrow, boasted
that his company could take in iron ore from the mine and put out acar 81 hours later (Ford, Henry, 1926, Today and Tomorrow, Portland, OR:
Productivity Press, Inc.).
This was a profitable way of doing business in the more predictable,
one-size-fits-all industrial economy that existed in the early 1900s. Fordand other businesses churned out mass amounts of basic products. But
as the markets grew and customers became more particular about thekind of products they wanted, this model began to break down. It could
not be responsive enough or produce the variety of products that werebeing demanded. For instance, when Henry Ford was asked about the
number of different colors a customer could request, he said,“they canhave any color they want as long as it’s black.” In the 1920s Ford’s market
share was over 50 percent but by the 1940s it had fallen to below 20
percent. Focusing on efficiency at the expense of being responsive tocustomer desires was no longer a successful business model.
Globalization, highly competitive markets, and the rapid pace oftechnological change are now driving the development of supply chains
where multiple companies work together, each company focusing on
the activities that it does best. Mining companies focus on mining, timbercompanies focus on logging and making lumber, and manufacturing
companies focus on different types of manufacturing from making
component parts to doing final assembly. This way people in each com-22

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Managementpany can keep up with rapid rates of change and keep learning the newskills needed to compete in their particular business.
Where companies once routinely ran their own warehouses oroperated their own fleet of trucks, they now have to consider whether
those operations are really a core competency or whether it is morecost effective to outsource those operations to other companies thatmake logistics the center of their business. To achieve high levels of
operating efficiency and to keep up with continuing changes in technology, companies need to focus on their core competencies. It requires
this kind of focus to stay competitive.
Instead of vertical integration, companies now practice “virtual integration.” Companies find other companies who they can work with toperform the activities called for in their supply chains. How a company
defines its core competencies and how it positions itself in the supply
chains it serves is one of the most important decisions it can make.

Par ticipants in the Supply Chain
In its simplest form, a supply chain is composed of a company and the
suppliers and customers of that company. This is the basic group of participants that creates a simple supply chain. Extended supply chainscontain three additional types of participants. First there is the supplier’s
supplier or the ultimate supplier at the beginning of an extended supply
chain. Then there is the customer’s customer or ultimate customer atthe end of an extended supply chain. Finally there is a whole category ofcompanies who are service providers to other companies in the supply
chain. These are companies who supply services in logistics, finance,
marketing, and information technology.
In any given supply chain there is some combination of companies
who perform different functions. There are companies that are producers,
distributors or wholesalers, retailers, and companies or individuals who
23

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

are the customers, the final consumers of a product. Supporting thesecompanies there will be other companies that are service providers thatprovide a range of needed services.

Producers
Producers or manufacturers are organizations that make a product. This
includes companies that are producers of raw materials and companies
that are producers of finished goods. Producers of raw materials areorganizations that mine for minerals, drill for oil and gas, and cut timber.
It also includes organizations that farm the land, raise animals, or catch
seafood. Producers of finished goods use the raw materials and subassemblies made by other producers to create their products.
Producers can create products that are intangible items such as music,
entertainment, software, or designs. A product can also be a service suchas mowing a lawn, cleaning an office, performing surgery, or teaching askill. In many instances the producers of tangible, industrial products are
moving to areas of the world where labor is less costly. Producers in thedeveloped world of North America, Europe, and parts of Asia are
increasingly producers of intangible items and services.

Distributors
Distributors are companies that take inventory in bulk from producers
and deliver a bundle of related product lines to customers. Distributors
are also known as wholesalers. They typically sell to other businesses
and they sell products in larger quantities than an individual consumer
would usually buy. Distributors buffer the producers from fluctuationsin product demand by stocking inventory and doing much of the sales
work to find and service customers. For the customer, distributors fulfill the “Time and Place” function—they deliver products when andwhere the customer wants them.

24Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

A distributor is typically an organization that takes ownership ofsignificant inventories of products that they buy from producers and sellto consumers. In addition to product promotion and sales, other functions the distributor performs are inventory management, warehouse
operations, and product transportation as well as customer support andpost-sales service. A distributor can also be an organization that only
brokers a product between the producer and the customer and nevertakes ownership of that product. This kind of distributor performs
mainly the functions of product promotion and sales. In both these cases,
as the needs of customers evolve and the range of available products
changes, the distributor is the agent that continually tracks customer
needs and matches them with products available.

Retailers
Retailers stock inventory and sell in smaller quantities to the generalpublic. This organization also closely tracks the preferences and demandsof the customers that it sells to. It advertises to its customers and often
uses some combination of price, product selection, service, and convenience as the primary draw to attract customers for the products it
sells. Discount department stores attract customers using price and wide
product selection. Upscale specialty stores offer a unique line of products and high levels of service. Fast food restaurants use convenienceand low prices as their draw.

Customers
Customers or consumers are any organization that purchases and uses a
product. A customer organization may purchase a product in order toincorporate it into another product that they in turn sell to other customers. Or a customer may be the final end user of a product who buys
the product in order to consume it.

25

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Service Providers
These are organizations that provide services to producers, distributors,
retailers, and customers. Service providers have developed special expertiseand skills that focus on a particular activity needed by a supply chain.
Because of this, they are able to perform these services more effectively
and at a better price than producers, distributors, retailers, or consumers
could do on their own.
Some common service providers in any supply chain are providersof transportation services and warehousing services. These are trucking
companies and public warehouse companies and they are known as
logistics providers. Financial service providers deliver services such as
making loans, doing credit analysis, and collecting on past due invoices. These are banks, credit rating companies, and collection agencies.
Some service providers deliver market research and advertising, whileothers provide product design, engineering services, legal services, andmanagement advice. Still other service providers offer information
technology and data collection services. All these service providers areintegrated to a greater or lesser degree into the ongoing operations of
the producers, distributors, retailers, and consumers in the supply chain.
Supply chains are composed of repeating sets of participants thatfall into one or more of these categories. Over time the needs of the
supply chain as a whole remain fairly stable.What changes is the mix ofparticipants in the supply chain and the roles that each participant plays.
In some supply chains, there are few service providers because the otherparticipants perform these services on their own. In other supply chainsvery efficient providers of specialized services have evolved and theother participants outsource work to these service providers instead of
doing it themselves. Examples of supply chain structure are shown in
Exhibit 1.2.

26

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 1.2

Supply Chain Structure

Supplier

Company

Customer

Supplier

Company

Customer

Ultimate
Supplier

Ultimate
Customer

Service
ProviderProduct
Designer

Raw
Material
ProducerMarketResearch

Manufacturer

Logistics
ProviderDistributor

Finance
ProviderRetailerBusiness
Customer

27

RetailCustomer

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

IN THE REAL WORLDA new category of supply chain service providers
has arisen because of opportunities opened up by theuse of information technology. Functions that companies
each used to do on their own can now be outsourced tocompanies who make that function a core competency.
SiteStuff (www.sitestuff.com) is a procurement solutions provider
focused on the real estate management market. The company serves
customers such as Trammell Crow, Jones Lang LaSalle, C.B. Richard
Ellis, and Insignia/ESG. Charlie Pace is SiteStuff’s chief operating
officer and has been with the company since its founding in 1999.
Charlie’s areas of responsibilities include creating SiteStuff’s product offering for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) Services
and future lines of business, supply chain operations, and relationships with suppliers.
“Our founder, Michael Stuart, was a CIO for several REITS (realestate investment trusts). Back in the 1980s he saw the need in
the property management industry for better budgeting support
based on more detailed understanding of spending patterns,” said
Charlie. “He put together a plan to offer this solution to property
managers before the Internet, but it was too expensive. Then theInternet came along and suddenly it became possible to cheaply
network into thousands of commercial properties.”
Traditionally, real estate procurement has been very decentralized
and real estate companies have shared similar issues when purchasing maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products andservices. This decentralized purchasing process results in:• A lack of compliance on national purchasing contracts• High transaction costs due to working with thousands ofvendors• Lack of visibility into property operations
28

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)“SiteStuff helps owners and managers of real estate save money,
save time, and gain control over property operations by aggregating
their buying power, streamlining back-end accounting practices, andallowing them to more effectively track and manage data regarding
procurement activities,” Charlie explained. “I think most people cansee the benefits conceptually. The hard part is to do it in practice.
In our daily operations we focus on three areas to get the job done.
“The first and most difficult is change management. We are fundamentally changing the way distribution works with the properties andvice versa. We put together national solutions for what up until now
have been regional markets. Distributors now have to deliver a very
specific and predefined set of products.
“Technology infrastructure is the second area. Managing theorder fulfillment process, which includes collecting end user data,
order status, etc., is one of our core activities. This calls for us toroll out an e-purchasing system to our customers as well as link our
supplier’s systems with internal tools in order to provide seamlessintegration.
“Changing perceptions so that SiteStuff becomes an acceptedchannel to market—that’s the third. We have successfully demonstrated to property managers, manufacturers, and distributors thatour procurement solution delivers quantifiable benefits to all parties. Initially, this was a difficult proposition to prove, however, we
gained traction as our volume quickly ramped up.”
SiteStuff did a strategic sourcing assessment for its customers
based on 1999 purchasing data provided by the customers. The
study identified the MRO products and services that customers
were buying, what the brand preferences were, whose products performed the best, and who had the best pricing. With this data,
SiteStuff could zero in on the best-in-class providers of products andservices for its customers. They then began a process of negotiating national contracts with these providers.

29

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)“For manufacturers we offer them the ability to drive standardization
with our customers. Through distributor rationalization, we partnerwith a few best-in-class distributors per category, which in turn offers
them a significant increase in the business they get from our properties. And our customers now have access to a single-source, paperlessprocess for purchasing all of their MRO products. They outsource theirpurchasing operations and benefit from better economies of scale.
For each constituent in our model, we provide high levels of data onpurchasing activities, customer profiles, and seasonal patterns. We
are bringing transparency to the supply chain.”

TE

AM
FL
Y

In reflecting on the last couple of years, Charlie summarized themain lessons learned. “We have to stay very focused on our core
proposition. We do purchasing of MRO products and services forpeople who manage real estate. We continue to build our value inthat area. We have learned how best to roll out the technology andhow to integrate with our supplier partners. We also have learned a lot
about how to screen suppliers for their ability to implement our technology and how to support and assist our client to grow with us.”
Looking at the next couple of years, Charlie sees the company continuing to grow its client base. “We know we have an excellent procurement solution in place now. We will continue to grow andenhance our facility management service offerings. We will further
integrate our systems with those of suppliers. Where there is realestate and a need to manage it, we have a solution and real estate
leaders are starting to realize that.”

A ligning the Supply Chain with Business Strategy
A company’s supply chain is an integral part of its approach to the markets it serves. The supply chain needs to respond to market requirements and do so in a way that supports the company’s business strategy.
The business strategy a company employs starts with the needs of the30Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

customers that the company serves or will serve. Depending on theneeds of its customers, a company’s supply chain must deliver theappropriate mix of responsiveness and efficiency. A company whose
supply chain allows it to more efficiently meet the needs of its customers will gain market share at the expense of other companies in thatmarket and also will be more profitable.
For example, let’s consider two companies and the needs that their
supply chains must respond to. The two companies are 7-Eleven andSam’s Club, which is a part of Wal-Mart. The customers who shop at
convenience stores like 7-Eleven have a different set of needs and preferences from those who shop at a discount warehouse like Sam’s Club.
The 7-Eleven customer is looking for convenience and not the lowest
price. That customer is often in a hurry and prefers that the store beclose by and have enough variety of products so that they can pick up
small amounts of common household or food items that they need
immediately. Sam’s Club customers are looking for the lowest price.
They are not in a hurry and are willing to drive some distance and buy
large quantities of limited numbers of items in order to get the lowest
price possible.
Clearly the supply chain for 7-Eleven needs to emphasize responsiveness. That group of customers expects convenience and will pay for
it. On the other hand, the Sam’s Club supply chain needs to focus tightly
on efficiency. The Sam’s Club customer is very price conscious and the
supply chain needs to find every opportunity to reduce costs so that thesesavings can be passed on to the customers. Both of these companies’
supply chains are well aligned with their business strategies and becauseof this they are each successful in their markets.
There are three steps to use in aligning your supply chain withyour business strategy. The first step is to understand the markets thatyour company serves. The second step is to define the strengths or core

31

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Managementcompetencies of your company and the role the company can or could
play in serving its markets. The last step is to develop the needed supply
chain capabilities to support the roles your company has chosen.

Understand the Markets Your Company Serves
Begin by asking questions about your customers. What kind of customer does your company serve? What kind of customer does yourcustomer sell to? What kind of supply chain is your company a part of?
The answers to these questions will tell you what supply chains yourcompany serves and whether your supply chain needs to emphasize
responsiveness or efficiency. Chopra and Meindl have defined the following attributes that help to clarify requirements for the customers
you serve. These attributes are:
The quantity of the product needed in each lot—Do your customers want small amounts of products or will they buy large
quantities? A customer at a convenience store or a drug store
buys in small quantities. A customer of a discount warehouse
club, such as Sam’s Club, buys in large quantities.

•• The response time that customers are willing to tolerate—Do

your customers buy on short notice and expect quick service
or is a longer lead time acceptable? Customers of a fast foodrestaurant certainly buy on short notice and expect quick
service. Customers buying custom machinery would plan thepurchase in advance and expect some lead time before theproduct could be delivered.

• The variety of products needed—Are customers looking for anarrow and well-defined bundle of products or are theylooking for a wide selection of different kinds of products?
Customers of a fashion boutique expect a narrowly definedgroup of products. Customers of a “big box” discount store
like Wal-Mart expect a wide variety of products to be available.
32

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management• The service level required—Do customers expect all products tobe available for immediate delivery or will they accept partial
deliveries of products and longer lead times? Customers of amusic store expect to get the CD they are looking for immediately or they will go elsewhere. Customers who order acustom-built new machine tool expect to wait a while before
delivery.

• The price of the product—How much are customers willing topay? Some customers will pay more for convenience or highlevels of service and other customers look to buy based on
the lowest price they can get.

• The desired rate of innovation in the product—How fast are new
products introduced and how long before existing products
become obsolete? In products such as electronics and computers, customers expect a high rate of innovation. In otherproducts, such as house paint, customers do not desire such ahigh rate of innovation.

Define Core Competencies of Your Company
The next step is to define the role that your company plays or wants toplay in these supply chains. What kind of supply chain participant isyour company? Is your company a producer, a distributor, a retailer, ora service provider? What does your company do to enable the supply
chains that it is part of? What are the core competencies of your company? How does your company make money? The answers to thesequestions tell you what roles in a supply chain will be the best fit foryour company.
Be aware that your company can serve multiple markets and participate in multiple supply chains. A company like W.W. Grainger serves
several different markets. It sells maintenance, repair, and operating(MRO) supplies to large national account customers such as Ford and33

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Boeing and it also sells these supplies to small businesses and building
contractors. These two different markets have different requirements asmeasured by the above customer attributes.
When you are serving multiple market segments, your company
will need to look for ways to leverage its core competencies. Parts ofthese supply chains may be unique to the market segment they serve
while other parts can be combined to achieve economies of scale. For
example, if manufacturing is a core competency for a company, it canbuild a range of different products in common production facilities.
Then different inventory and transportation options can be used todeliver the products to customers in different market segments.

Develop Needed Supply Chain Capabilities
Once you know what kind of markets your company serves and the role
your company does or will play in the supply chains of these markets,then you can take this last step, which is to develop the supply chain capabilities needed to support the roles your company plays. This development is guided by the decisions made about the five supply chain drivers.
Each of these drivers can be developed and managed to emphasize
responsiveness or efficiency depending on the business requirements.
1. Production—This driver can be made very responsive by building

factories that have a lot of excess capacity and that use flexible
manufacturing techniques to produce a wide range of items. To
be even more responsive, a company could do their production
in many smaller plants that are close to major groups of customers
so that delivery times would be shorter. If efficiency is desirable,
then a company can build factories with very little excess capacity
and have the factories optimized for producing a limited range ofitems. Further efficiency could be gained by centralizing production in large central plants to get better economies of scale.
34

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

2. Inventory—Responsiveness here can be had by stocking highlevels of inventory for a wide range of products. Additional
responsiveness can be gained by stocking products at many locations so as to have the inventory close to customers and available
to them immediately. Efficiency in inventory management would
call for reducing inventory levels of all items and especially of
items that do not sell as frequently. Also, economies of scale andcost savings could be gotten by stocking inventory in only a few
central locations.
3. Location—A location approach that emphasizes responsivenesswould be one where a company opens up many locations to bephysically close to its customer base. For example, McDonald’s
has used location to be very responsive to its customers by opening up lots of stores in its high volume markets. Efficiency canbe achieved by operating from only a few locations and centralizing activities in common locations. An example of this is theway Dell serves large geographical markets from only a few central locations that perform a wide range of activities.
4. Transportation—Responsiveness can be achieved by a transporta-tion mode that is fast and flexible. Many companies that sell
products through catalogs or over the Internet are able to provide high levels of responsiveness by using transportation todeliver their products, often within 24 hours. FedEx and UPS are
two companies who can provide very responsive transportation
services. Efficiency can be emphasized by transporting products
in larger batches and doing it less often. The use of transportation modes such as ship, rail, and pipelines can be very efficient.
Transportation can be made more efficient if it is originated outof a central hub facility instead of from many branch locations.

35

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

5. Information—The power of this driver grows stronger each year

as the technology for collecting and sharing information becomes
more widespread, easier to use, and less expensive. Information,much like money, is a very useful commodity because it can beapplied directly to enhance the performance of the other four
supply chain drivers. High levels of responsiveness can beachieved when companies collect and share accurate and timely
data generated by the operations of the other four drivers. The
supply chains that serve the electronics markets are some of themost responsive in the world. Companies in these supply chainsfrom manufacturers, to distributors, to the big retail stores collectand share data about customer demand, production schedules,
and inventory levels.
Where efficiency is more the focus, less information about
fewer activities can be collected. Companies may also elect toshare less information among themselves so as not to risk havingthat information used against them. Please note, however, thatthese information efficiencies are only efficiencies in the shortterm and they become less efficient over time because the cost of
information continues to drop and the cost of the other four
drivers usually continues to rise. Over the longer term, thosecompanies and supply chains that learn how to maximize the useof information to get optimal performance from the other drivers
will gain the most market share and be the most profitable.

36

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Three Steps to Align
Supply Chain & Business Strategy

37

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Sunil Chopra is the IBM Distinguished Professorof Operations Management at Northwestern University’s
Kellogg School of Management and a director of the
Masters of Management in Manufacturing program. He is
also co-author of Supply Chain Management: Strategy,
Planning, and Operation, a definitive and widely recognized source book in the field.
Wal-Mart and Dell Computers are two companies that have risen toprominence using a business strategy that offers low prices as a key
selling point to their customers. This strategy requires that their supply chains be highly efficient in order to generate the cost savings
needed to make a profit at the low prices they offer. Professor Chopra
has followed these two companies and offers an analysis of how they
have aligned their supply chains to support their business strategies.
To begin with, he points out that Wal-Mart’s competitors opened
stores in ones and twos and used demographic data to select store
sites. Wal-Mart took a supply chain approach and would not evenopen a store in an area unless they determined that the area could
support a distribution center (DC) and a sufficient number of storesto gain scale economies at the DC.
Then they targeted specific business operations from which to get
efficiencies. “Wal-Mart said 15 years ago we are going to replenish
our stores much more efficiently. They began to replenish stores
two times a week where their competition was replenishing twotimes a month. What this meant was that a Wal-Mart manager only
had to forecast for half a week and an equally capable store manager elsewhere had to forecast sales and inventory needs for half amonth—they couldn’t do as well.

38

Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)“Since they were replenishing more often, they pioneered the crossdocking technique in order to reduce the cost of small lot replenishment. They also said that they would own and control their own
trucks and their computer systems because these were the two
assets that they used to make their supply chain so efficient. They
invested heavily in information technology and trucks—they boughta fleet of trucks. They made these into core competencies of thecompany.
“When I look at Dell,” said Professor Chopra, “I see a company who
was able to live through and learn from a big mistake they madeearly on. Their roots were as a direct sales company but then in theearly 90s they tried to sell through retail stores and almost went
broke. That drove them back to the direct model and they have notstrayed since.
“PCs are now much like cars, it is more of a replacement market
than a growth market. Customers know what they want and theyalso want a good price. Dell’s message to the market is customization and great prices. They can support this strategy because they
enjoy economies of scale and postpone assembly. They use a few
large facilities to assemble PCs, they assemble to order and not tostock so inventory is kept very low. In a high change technology market they do not get stuck with obsolete inventory. Their shipping
costs are high but there is enough profit margin to cover that.
“This business model is finely tuned to the demands of the market,
but what would happen if the PC market suddenly changed?”
Professor Chopra painted a scenario that gives insight into how acompany must always adjust its strategy and its supply chain to thedemands of the market. “Low inventory is good in a technology market where there is a lot of churn and customers value customization. But what if the PC market is on the verge of standardization?
The higher up we get in PC performance levels, the less the valueof the next incremental improvement in performance. Dell and its

39

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
competitors all use many of the same components to build theirmachines. If the market no longer values customization and simply
wants the best price on a standard machine, then the Dell model
doesn’t work as well. Build to stock and position inventory close to
the customers via retail stores becomes a better model.”

AM
FL
Y

There is no one right model for a supply chain. Markets change andas they do, businesses need to reevaluate their business model andtheir strategy. “Since a company’s supply chain has a great impact
on its ability to execute its business model successfully, that supply
chain must always be adjusted as the business strategy changes.”

Chapter SummaryTE

A supply chain is composed of all the companies involved in the design,
production, and delivery of a product to market. Supply chain management is the coordination of production, inventory, location, andtransportation among the participants in a supply chain to achieve thebest mix of responsiveness and efficiency for the market being served.
The goal of supply chain management is to increase sales of goods andservices to the final, end use customer while at the same time reducing
both inventory and operating expenses.
The business model of vertical integration that came out of theindustrial economy has given way to “virtual integration” of companies
in a supply chain. Each company now focuses on its core competencies
and partners with other companies that have complementary capabilities
for the design and delivery of products to market. Companies must focus
on improvements in their core competencies in order to keep up withthe fast pace of market and technological change in today’s economy.

40Basic Concepts of Supply Chain Management

To succeed in the competitive markets that make up today’s economy, companies must learn to align their supply chains with thedemands of the markets they serve. Supply chain performance is now adistinct competitive advantage for companies who excel in this area.
One of the largest companies in North America is a testament to thepower of effective supply chain management. Wal-Mart has grownsteadily over the last 20 years and much, if not most, of its success isdirectly related to its evolving capabilities to continually improve its
supply chain.

41

CHAPTER 2

Supply Chain Operations:
Planning and Sourcing
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Gain a conceptual appreciation of the business operationsin any supply chain• Exercise an executive level understanding of operations
involved in supply chain planning and sourcing• Start to assess how well these operations are working withinyour own companys the saying goes,“It’s not what you know, but what you can remember when you need it.” Since there is an infinite amount of detailin any situation, the trick is to find useful models that capture thesalient facts and provide a framework to organize the rest of the relevant
details. The purpose of this chapter is to provide some useful models of
the business operations that make up the supply chain.

A

A Useful Model of Supply Chain Operations
In the first chapter we saw that there are five drivers of supply chain
performance. These drivers can be thought of as the design parametersor policy decisions that define the shape and capabilities of any supply
chain. Within the context created by these policy decisions, a supply

43

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

chain goes about doing its job by performing regular, ongoing operations. These are the “nuts and bolts” operations at the core of every
supply chain.
As a way to get a high level understanding of these operations andhow they relate to each other, we can use the supply chain operations
research or SCOR model developed by the Supply-Chain Council(Supply Chain Council Inc., 1150 Freeport Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15238,
www.supply-chain.org). This model identifies four categories of operations. We will use these following four categories to organize and discuss
supply chain operations:
Plan•• Source• Make• Deliver

PlanThis refers to all the operations needed to plan and organize the operations in the other three categories.We will investigate three operationsin this category in some detail: demand forecasting; product pricing; andinventory management.

SourceOperations in this category include the activities necessary to acquire theinputs to create products or services.We will look at two operations here.
The first, procurement, is the acquisition of materials and services. The
second operation, credit and collections, is not traditionally seen as a sourcing
activity but it can be thought of as, literally, the acquisition of cash. Boththese operations have a big impact on the efficiency of a supply chain.

44Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

TIPS & TECHNIQUESFour Categories ofSupply Chain Operations

Within the constraints set by decisions about the five
supply chain drivers, these business operations do thework that makes the supply chain a reality.

Make
This category includes the operations required to develop and build the
products and services that a supply chain provides. Operations that wewill discuss in this category are: product design; production management; and facility and management. The SCOR model does not specifically include the product design and development process but it isincluded here because it is integral to the production process.

45

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Deliver
These operations encompass the activities that are part of receiving customer orders and delivering products to customers. The two main operations we will review are order entry/order fulfillment and productdelivery. These two operations constitute the core connections between
companies in a supply chain.
The rest of this chapter presents further detail in the categories ofPlan and Source. There is an executive level overview of three main
operations that constitute the Planning process and two operations thatcomprise the Sourcing process. Chapter 3 presents an executive overview
of the key operations in Making and Delivering.

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

There is also a supply operation called “adaptability.”
Business is an evolving set of challenges and adaptability
is what a company needs in order to succeed over thelong run.
Paper Enterprises (www.paperenterprises.com) is a distributor offood service and paper disposables and janitorial supplies. They arebased in the Bronx and serve the entire New York metropolitan area.
Herb Sedler founded the company in 1961. His son Jordan has
been working in the business for over 23 years.
Success in a market like New York City calls for a company to be
adept at maintaining high levels of customer service while also operating as efficiently as possible. “You learn through trial and error but
you learn. This is what adaptability is all about,” said Jordan Sedler.
“For instance, in a lot of Manhattan buildings you have to use afreight elevator manned by a guy who may not really care about yourdelivery schedule. You learn to bring him a doughnut and coffee.”46

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)“In New York City there are about 300 competitors for every market
segment,” said Herb Sedler. “There are three or four big, overheadladen corporations and then 297 little guys running around withtrucks who buy cheap and sell cheap. Paper Enterprises straddles
both worlds. On the one hand, we compete with the big corporations, and on the other hand, we didn’t want to compete with the little guys so we decided to make them our customers. We became are-distributor who could buy in bulk from manufacturers and resell
to all the smaller operators.”
Paper Enterprises fosters a mindset of customer service in all of its
staff and then they focus on the day-to-day demands of deliveringthat customer service. “I have set the tone that the customer isking,” said Herb. “You have to have a staff who loves the challengeof satisfying the customer. In today’s ABC (activity based costing)world this drive for customer satisfaction does not always look efficient. But it is the relentless dedication to satisfying the customerthat ultimately pays off.”“Logistics. . . , ” said Jordan, “it comes down to being able to operate
under some pretty tough circumstances. There is always a problem
with delivery windows—70 percent of our customers have 2 1/2 hourdelivery windows that we have to meet. And the equipment you use
has to fit the terrain. In lower Manhattan you just can’t use trucks overa certain size. Imagine trying to back an 18 wheeler into a loading dockacross four lanes of traffic with pedestrians crossing back and forth.”
Jordan identified some other operating issues that require his attention. “We have a difficult time finding warehouse space. In New York
it is often just not available and when it is available it costs way toomuch. Also in this city there is an interesting situation that you havewhen it comes to people. We hire people from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and there is a cliquish tendency in theemployees from each of these cultures. It is a real trick to keepthese cliques from distracting people and undermining the company
environment.”

47

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
When they look at technology Herb and Jordan take a very pragmatic
approach. “We have two goals for using technology,” said Jordan.
“The first goal is to lower our cost of doing business in a measurable
way. How can we use technology to lower costs in inventory control,
warehouse management, and order fulfillment? The second goal is
to lower our error rate. We don’t want people to manually handle andre-handle data like purchase orders, invoices, etc., because it justincreases the error rate. Our motto is ‘Get it right the first time.’”“We also want to bring technology to our customer base,” added
Herb. “The immigrants are the new entrepreneurs. They have no formal
training in distribution and they are often one-man shows. I am a mentor in the Baruch College entrepreneurship program. As they succeed,
Paper Enterprises will succeed. As we show them technology andpractices that help them grow, we become a logistics organizationand not just a paper distributor.”“I learn something every day. Running a business in New York is likeworking in a microcosm of the whole world. People from every country
are here,” said Jordan. “And it’s funny, where you may think that
there would be intense and cutthroat competition—not so—there has
evolved a cooperative spirit. That is an important part of how we dobusiness.” “After 9/11,” said Herb, “we called a meeting of distributors in the city and said we would make our trucks available to ourcompetitors who needed to get into lower Manhattan if they would
help us in New Jersey.” Adaptability is an ever-changing blend ofcompetition and cooperation.

Demand Forecasting (Plan)
Supply chain management decisions are based on forecasts that define
which products will be required, what amount of these products will becalled for, and when they will be needed. The demand forecast becomes
the basis for companies to plan their internal operations and to cooperate among each other to meet market demand.
48

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

All forecasts deal with four major variables that combine to determine what market conditions will be like. Those variables are:
1. Demand
2. Supply
3. Product Characteristics
4. Competitive Environment

Demand refers to the overall market demand for a group of related
products or services. Is the market growing or declining? If so, what is
the yearly or quarterly rate of growth or decline? Or maybe the market
is relatively mature and demand is steady at a level that has been predictable
for some period of years. Also, many products have a seasonal demand
pattern. For example, snow skis and heating oil are more in demand in
the winter and tennis rackets and sun screen are more in demand in thesummer. Perhaps the market is a developing market—the products orservices are new and there is not much historical data on demand or thedemand varies widely because new customers are just being introduced
to the products. Markets where there is little historical data and lots ofvariability are the most difficult when it comes to demand forecasting.
Supply is determined by the number of producers of a product andby the lead times that are associated with a product. The more producers
there are of a product and the shorter the lead times, the more predictable this variable is. When there are only a few suppliers or whenlead times are longer, there is more potential uncertainty in a market.
Like variability in demand, uncertainty in supply makes forecasting moredifficult. Also, longer lead times associated with a product require a longer
time horizon over which forecasts must be done. Supply chain forecasts
must cover a time period that encompasses the combined lead times of
all the components that go into the creation of a final product.

49

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TE

AM
FL
Y

Product characteristics include the features of a product that influence customer demand for the product. Is the product new and developing quickly like many electronic products or is the product matureand changing slowly or not at all, as is the case with many commodity
products? Forecasts for mature products can cover longer timeframes
than forecasts for products that are developing quickly. It is also important to know whether a product will steal demand away from anotherproduct. Can it be substituted for another product? Or will the use ofa product drive the complementary use of a related product? Productsthat either compete with or complement each other should be forecasted together.
Competitive environment refers to the actions of a company andits competitors.What is the market share of a company? Regardless ofwhether the total size of a market is growing or shrinking, what is thetrend in an individual company’s market share? Is it growing or declining? What is the market share trend of competitors? Market share trends
can be influenced by product promotions and price wars, so forecasts
should take into account such events that are planned for the upcoming
period. Forecasts should also account for anticipated promotions andprice wars that will be initiated by competitors.

Forecasting Methods
There are four basic methods to use when doing forecasts. Most forecasts are done using various combinations of these four methods. Chopra
and Meindl define these methods as:
1. Qualitative
2. Causal
3. Time Series
4. Simulation50

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

Qualitative methods rely upon a person’s intuition or subjective
opinions about a market. These methods are most appropriate when
there is little historical data to work with.When a new line of products
is introduced, people can make forecasts based on comparisons withother products or situations that they consider similar. People can forecast using production adoption curves that they feel reflect what will
happen in the market.
Causal methods of forecasting assume that demand is strongly related
to particular environmental or market factors. For instance, demand forcommercial loans is often closely correlated to interest rates. So if interest
rate cuts are expected in the next period of time, then loan forecasts
can be derived using a causal relationship with interest rates. Anotherstrong causal relationship exists between price and demand. If prices arelowered, demand can be expected to increase and if prices are raised,demand can be expected to fall.
Time series methods are the most common form of forecasting.
They are based on the assumption that historical patterns of demand
are a good indicator of future demand. These methods are best when
there is a reliable body of historical data and the markets being forecast are stable and have demand patterns that do not vary much from one
year to the next. Mathematical techniques such as moving averages
and exponential smoothing are used to create forecasts based on timeseries data. These techniques are employed by most forecasting software
packages.
Simulation methods use combinations of causal and time series
methods to imitate the behavior of consumers under different circumstances. This method can be used to answer questions such as what will
happen to revenue if prices on a line of products are lowered or what
will happen to market share if a competitor introduces a competingproduct or opens a store nearby.

51

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Few companies use only one of these methods to do forecasts. Most
companies do several forecasts using several methods and then combine
the results of these different forecasts into the actual forecast that they
use to plan their business. Studies have shown that this process of creating
forecasts using different methods and then combining the results into a
final forecast usually produces better accuracy than the output of any
one method alone.
Regardless of the forecasting methods used, when doing forecasts
and evaluating their results it is important to keep several things in
mind. First of all, short-term forecasts are inherently more accurate thanlong-term forecasts. The effect of business trends and conditions can bemuch more accurately calculated over short periods than over longer
periods. When Wal-Mart began restocking its stores twice a week
instead of twice a month, the store managers were able to significantly
increase the accuracy of their forecasts because the time periods
involved dropped from two or three weeks to three or four days. Most
long range, multi-year forecasts are highly speculative.
Aggregate forecasts are more accurate than forecasts for individual
products or for small market segments. For example, annual forecasts forsoft drink sales in a given metropolitan area are fairly accurate but whenthese forecasts are broken down to sales by districts within the metropolitan area, they become less accurate. Aggregate forecasts are madeusing a broad base of data that provides good forecasting accuracy. As arule, the more narrowly focused or specific a forecast is, the less data isavailable and the more variability there is in the data, so the accuracy isdiminished.
Finally, forecasts are always wrong to a greater or lesser degree.
There are no perfect forecasts and businesses need to assign some
expected degree of error to every forecast. An accurate forecast may
have a degree of error that is plus or minus 5 percent. A more specula-52Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

tive forecast may have a plus or minus 20 percent degree of error. It is
important to know the degree of error because a business must havecontingency plans to cover those outcomes.What would a company do
if raw material prices were 5 percent higher than expected? Whatwould it do if demand was 20 percent higher than expected?

TIPS & TECHNIQUESThe Four Forecasting Variables
and the Four Forecasting Methods

53

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Aggregate Planning
Once demand forecasts have been created, the next step is to create aplan for the company to meet the expected demand. This is calledaggregate planning and its purpose is to satisfy demand in a way thatmaximizes profit for the company. The planning is done at the aggregate level and not at the level of individual stock keeping units (SKUs).
It sets the optimum levels of production and inventory that will be followed over the next 3 to 18 months.
The aggregate plan becomes the framework within which short-term
decisions are made about production, inventory, and distribution. Production decisions involve setting parameters such as the rate of production
and the amount of production capacity to use, the size of the workforce,and how much overtime and subcontracting to use. Inventory decisions
include how much demand will be met immediately by inventory on
hand and how much demand can be satisfied later and turned into
backlogged orders. Distribution decisions define how and when productwill be moved from the place of production to the place where it will
be used or purchased by customers.
There are three basic approaches to take in creating the aggregate
plan. They involve trade-offs among three variables. Those variables are: 1)
amount of production capacity; 2) the level of utilization of the production capacity; and 3) the amount of inventory to carry.We will look briefly
at each of these three approaches. In actual practice, most companies create aggregate plans that are a combination of these three approaches.
1. Use production capacity to match demand. In this approach the total

amount of production capacity is matched to the level of demand.
The objective here is to use 100 percent of capacity at all times.
This is achieved by adding or eliminating plant capacity as needed
and hiring and laying off employees as needed. This approach
results in low levels of inventory but it can be very expensive to54

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

implement if the cost of adding or reducing plant capacity ishigh. It is also often disruptive and demoralizing to the workforce if people are constantly being hired or fired as demand rises
and falls. This approach works best when the cost of carrying
inventory is high and the cost of changing capacity—plant andworkforce—is low.
2. Utilize varying levels of total capacity to match demand. This approach

can be used if there is excess production capacity available. If
existing plants are not used 24 hours a day and 7 days a weekthen there is an opportunity to meet changing demand byincreasing or decreasing utilization of production capacity. The
size of the workforce can be maintained at a steady rate andovertime and flexible work scheduling used to match production
rates. The result is low levels of inventory and also lower averagelevels of capacity utilization. The approach makes sense when
the cost of carrying inventory is high and the cost of excess
capacity is relatively low.
3. Use inventory and backlogs to match demand. Using this approachprovides for stability in the plant capacity and workforce andenables a constant rate of output. Production is not matchedwith demand. Instead inventory is either built up during periodsof low demand in anticipation of future demand or inventory isallowed to run low and backlogs are built up in one period to be
filled in a following period. This approach results in higher
capacity utilization and lower costs of changing capacity but it
does generate large inventories and backlogs over time as
demand fluctuates. It should be used when the cost of capacity
and changing capacity is high and the cost of carrying inventory
and backlogs is relatively low.

55

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Product Pricing (Plan)
Companies and entire supply chains can influence demand over time byusing price. Depending on how price is used, it will tend to either maximize revenue or gross profit. Typically marketing and sales people wantto make pricing decisions that will stimulate demand during peak seasons.
The aim here is to maximize total revenue. Often financial or production
people want to make pricing decisions that stimulate demand during low
periods. Their aim is to maximize gross profit in peak demand periods
and generate revenue to cover costs during low demand periods.

Relationship of Cost Structure to Pricing
The question for each company to ask is, “Is it better to do price promotion during peak periods to increase revenue or during low periods
to cover costs?” The answer depends on the company’s cost structure.
If a company has flexibility to vary the size of its workforce and productive capacity and the cost of carrying inventory is high, then it isbest to create more demand in peak seasons. If there is less flexibility tovary workforce and capacity and if cost to carry inventory is low, it isbest to create demand in low periods.
An example of a company that can quickly ramp up production
would be an electronics components manufacturer. Such companies haveinvested in plant and equipment that can be quickly reconfigured to
produce different final products from an inventory of standard component
parts. The finished goods inventory is expensive to carry because it soon
becomes obsolete and must be written off.
These companies are generally motivated to run promotions in peak
periods to stimulate demand even further. Since they can quickly increase
production levels, a reduction in the profit margin can be made up for by
an increase in total sales if they are able to sell all the product that they
manufacture.
56

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

A company that cannot quickly ramp up production levels is a paper
mill. The plant and equipment involved in making paper is very expensive and requires a long lead time to build. Once in place, a paper milloperates most efficiently if it is able to run at a steady rate all year long.
The cost of carrying an inventory of paper products is less expensive
TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Product Promotion andCompany Cost Structure

57

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

than carrying an inventory of electronic components because paper
products are commodity items that will not become obsolete. These
products also can be stored in less expensive warehouse facilities and areless likely to be stolen.
A paper mill is motivated to do price promotions in periods of low
demand. In periods of high demand the focus is on maintaining a good
profit margin. Since production levels cannot be increased anyway, there
is no way to respond to or profit from an increase in demand. In periods
where demand is below the available production level, then there isvalue in increased demand. The fixed cost of the plant and equipment
is constant so it is best to try to balance demand with available production capacity. This way the plant can be run steadily at full capacity.

I nventory Management (Plan)
Inventory management is a set of techniques that are used to manage
the inventory levels within different companies in a supply chain. The
aim is to reduce the cost of inventory as much as possible while still
maintaining the service levels that customers require. Inventory management takes its major inputs from the demand forecasts for products
and the prices of products. With these two inputs, inventory management is an ongoing process of balancing product inventory levels tomeet demand and exploiting economies of scale to get the best product prices.
As we discussed in Chapter 1, there are three kinds of inventory: 1)
cycle inventory; 2) seasonal inventory; and 3) safety inventory. Cycle
inventory and seasonal inventory are both influenced by economy ofscale considerations. The cost structure of the companies in any supply
chain will suggest certain levels of inventory based on production costs
and inventory carrying cost. Safety inventory is influenced by the predictability of product demand. The less predictable product demand is,58

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

the higher the level of safety inventory is required to cover unexpectedswings in demand.
The inventory management operation in a company or an entire
supply chain is composed of a blend of activities related to managing
the three different types of inventory. Each type of inventory has its
own specific challenges and the mix of these challenges will vary fromone company to another and from one supply chain to another.

Cycle Inventory
Cycle inventory is the inventory required to meet product demand
over the time period between placing orders for the product. Cycle
inventory exists because economies of scale make it desirable to makefewer orders of large quantities of a product rather than continuous
orders of small product quantity. The end use customer of a productmay actually use a product in continuous small amounts throughout theyear. But the distributor and the manufacturer of that product may findit more cost efficient to produce and stock the product in large batches
that do not match the usage pattern.
Cycle inventory is the buildup of inventory in the supply chain due
to the fact that production and stocking of inventory is done in lot sizes
that are larger than the ongoing demand for the product. For example, a
distributor may experience an ongoing demand for Item A that is 100 units
per week. The distributor finds, however, that it is most cost effective toorder in batches of 650 units. Every six weeks or so the distributor places
an order causing cycle inventory to build up in the distributor’s warehouseat the beginning of the ordering period. The manufacturer of Item A
that all the distributors order from may find that it is most efficient forthem to manufacture in batches of 14,000 units at a time. This also
results in the buildup of cycle inventory at the manufacturer’s location.

59

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Economic Order Quantity
Given the cost structure of a company, there is an order quantity that is
the most cost effective amount to purchase at a time. This is called theeconomic order quantity (EOQ) and it is calculated as:
EOQ = 2UO (square root of 2UO / hC)
hC

AM
FL
Y

where:
U = annual usage rate
O = ordering cost
C = cost per unith = holding cost per year as a percentage of unit cost
For instance, let’s say that Item Z has an annual usage rate (U) of
240, a fixed cost per order (O) of $5.00, a unit cost (C) of $7.00, andan annual holding cost (h) of 30 percent per unit. If we do the math, itworks out as:TE

EOQ = 2 x 240 x 5.00
.30 x 7.00
EOQ = 2400
2.1

EOQ = 1142.86
EOQ = 33.81 and rounded to the nearest whole unit, it is 34

If the annual usage rate for Item Z is 240, then the monthly usage
rate is 20. An EOQ of 34 represents about 1 and 3/4 months supply.
This may not be a convenient order size. Small changes in the EOQ do
not have a big impact on total ordering and holding costs so it is best
to round off the EOQ quantity to the nearest standard ordering size. In
the case of Item Z, there may be 30 units in a case. So it would makesense to adjust the EOQ for Item Z to 30.

60

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

The EOQ formula works to calculate an order quantity that resultsin the most efficient investment of money in inventory. Efficiency here
is defined as the lowest total unit cost for each inventory item. If a certain inventory item has a high usage rate and it is expensive, the EOQ
formula recommends a low order quantity which results in more orders
per year but less money invested in each order. If another inventory
TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Understanding the
Economic Ordering Quantity (EOQ)

Good inventory management requires a company to know the EOQ
for all the products it buys. The EOQ for different products changes
over time so a company needs an ongoing measurement process tokeep the numbers accurate and up to date.

61

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

item has a low usage rate and it is inexpensive, the EOQ formula recommends a high order quantity. This means fewer orders per year but
since the unit cost is low, it still results in the most efficient amount ofmoney to invest in that item.

Seasonal Inventory
Seasonal inventory happens when a company or a supply chain with afixed amount of productive capacity decides to produce and stockpile
products in anticipation of future demand. If future demand is going to
exceed productive capacity, then the answer is to produce products intimes of low demand that can be put into inventory to meet the highdemand in the future.
Decisions about seasonal inventory are driven by a desire to get thebest economies of scale given the capacity and cost structure of each company in the supply chain. If it is expensive for a manufacturer to increase
productive capacity, then capacity can be considered as fixed. Once theannual demand for the manufacturer’s products is determined, the mostefficient schedule to utilize that fixed capacity can be calculated.
This schedule will call for seasonal inventory. Managing seasonal
inventory calls for demand forecasts to be accurate since large amounts
of inventory can be built up this way and it can become obsolete or
holding costs can mount if the inventory is not sold off as anticipated.
Managing seasonal inventory also calls for manufacturers to offer priceincentives to persuade distributors to purchase it and put it in theirwarehouses well before demand for it occurs.

Safety Inventory
Safety inventory is necessary to compensate for the uncertainty that exists
in a supply chain. Retailers and distributors do not want to run out of
inventory in the face of unexpected customer demand or unexpected62Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

TIPS & TECHNIQUESKey Points to Remember
about Inventory Management

63

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

delay in receiving replenishment orders so they keep safety stock on
hand. As a rule, the higher the level of uncertainty, the higher the levelof safety stock that is required.
Safety inventory for an item can be defined as the amount of inventory on hand for an item when the next replenishment EOQ lot
arrives. This means that the safety stock is inventory that does not turnover. In effect, it becomes a fixed asset and it drives up the cost of carrying inventory. Companies need to find a balance between their desire
to carry a wide range of products and offer high availability on all ofthem and their conflicting desire to keep the cost of inventory as low
as possible. That balance is reflected quite literally in the amount ofsafety stock that a company carries.

Procurement (Source)
Traditionally, the main activities of a purchasing manager were to beatup potential suppliers on price and then buy products from the lowest
cost supplier that could be found. That is still an important activity, butthere are other activities that are becoming equally important. Becauseof this the purchasing activity is now seen as part of a broader function
called procurement. The procurement function can be broken into fivemain activity categories:
1. Purchasing
2. Consumption Management
3. Vendor Selection
4. Contract Negotiation
5. Contract Management

Purchasing
These activities are the routine activities related to issuing purchaseorders for needed products. There are two types of products that a64Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Service means different things to different customers. Customers have needs that vary depending on
their strengths and weaknesses and the business models
that they use. Effective supply chain companies learn totailor their service offerings to match the individual customer’s needs.
Service Paper Company (www.servicepaper.com) distributes retailfood and foodservice products, industrial packaging, healthcare disposables, and janitorial supplies. They have been in business since1937 and have locations in Seattle, Portland, and Spokane. Leonard
Green is Service Paper’s president.
“We have customers in a number of different market segments andthese customers are in different stages of their business growth,”
Leonard said. “We look at each customer and strive to provide a mixof products and services that will make us a valuable part of theiroperations. Let me illustrate this with an example of a customer that
we have served for some time now and through several stages intheir growth. Back in the ‘80s we began doing business with a small
company that operated a handful of coffee shops in Seattle.
“This small company insisted on using specially made products
featuring their logo. Their original supplier was not willing to stock“special print” inventory. At Service Paper we viewed the request as
a customer requirement rather than an inconvenience. We began
taking large shipments of their logoed special print items from various
manufacturers and distributed these products to their coffee shops
several times a week.
“They were growing rapidly and we were able to work with their staff
to facilitate the procurement of their foodservice disposables. We
knew the products and the manufacturers in the foodservice industry so we were able to help in educating their purchasing people and65

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
in suggesting the products they needed. We also helped them withsourcing and even in scheduling production runs with manufacturers
for products they needed.
“Early on the company CEO was very hands-on in all of these areas.
He knew what he wanted the company to be and he was intent on
finding the products they needed. We steered him to the maker ofa new coffee cup lid called the traveler lid. It allowed a person to sip
hot coffee while they walked or drove without getting too much intheir mouth all at once. When he saw the lid he liked it so much that
he insisted the manufacturer give them an exclusive on the product.
The manufacturer wasn’t willing to do that and was ready to walkaway from the business because of that demand. Since I knew bothparties, I was able to act as a referee. I encouraged the CEO to seethat he had a strong potential partner there and perhaps he could
reconsider his position. I helped them start a business relationshipthat has been very beneficial to both companies ever since.”
As the company expanded out of the Seattle area, Service Paper
introduced them to Network Services Company. Network Services isa national cooperative of distribution companies of which Service
Paper is both a member and an owner. “We got Network Services
involved when the company told us they were going to expand into
Chicago. I became their advocate within Network. We had lots ofbusiness in Seattle but, at first, there were only a few stores in
Chicago. The Network member in Chicago was reluctant to stock the
specially printed products and do the many small deliveries to thecoffee shops. Then they expanded into San Francisco and I had to work
hard to explain to our member there why it was a good deal.
“We had to change our operating policies to meet the customer’s
needs. We had to carry a substantial inventory of proprietary items
and we had to accept orders that were often much smaller than ourusual minimum orders. But, over time, they established credibility withus because they met their new store roll out plans and the promised
volume did materialize. There are now some 25 Network members
who support them nationwide.”66

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

company buys; 1) direct or strategic materials that are needed to produce the products that the company sells to its customers; and 2) indirect or MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) products that acompany consumes as part of daily operations.
The mechanics of purchasing both types of products are largely thesame. Purchasing decisions are made, purchase orders are issued, vendors
are contacted, and orders are placed. There is a lot of data communicatedin this process between the buyer and the supplier—items and quantities
ordered, prices, delivery dates, delivery addresses, billing addresses, andpayment terms. One of the greatest challenges of the purchasing activity
is to see to it that this data communication happens in a timely manner
and without error. Much of this activity is very predictable and follows
well defined routines.

Consumption Management
Effective procurement begins with an understanding of how much ofwhat categories of products are being bought across the entire company as well as by each operating unit. There must be an understandingof how much of what kinds of products are bought from whom andat what prices.
Expected levels of consumption for different products at the various
locations of a company should be set and then compared against actual
consumption on a regular basis. When consumption is significantly
above or below expectations, this should be brought to the attention of
the appropriate parties so possible causes can be investigated and appropriate actions taken. Consumption above expectations is either a problem
to be corrected or it reflects inaccurate expectations that need to bereset. Consumption below expectations may point to an opportunitythat should be exploited or it also may simply reflect inaccurate expectations to begin with.

67

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Vendor Selection
There must be an ongoing process to define the procurement capabilities
needed to support the company’s business plan and its operating model.
This definition will provide insight into the relative importance of vendor
capabilities. The value of these capabilities have to be considered inaddition to simply the price of a vendor’s product. The value of productquality, service levels, just in time delivery, and technical support can only
be estimated in light of what is called for by the business plan and thecompany’s operating model.
Once there is an understanding of the current purchasing situation
and an appreciation of what a company needs to support its business planand operating model, a search can be made for suppliers who have boththe products and the service capabilities needed. As a general rule, acompany seeks to narrow down the number of suppliers it does businesswith. This way it can leverage its purchasing power with a few suppliers
and get better prices in return for purchasing higher volumes of product.

Contract Negotiation
As particular business needs arise, contracts must be negotiated withindividual vendors on the preferred vendor list. This is where the specificitems, prices, and service levels are worked out. The simplest negotiations are for contracts to purchase indirect products where suppliers are
selected on the basis of lowest price. The most complex negotiations
are for contracts to purchase direct materials that must meet exacting
quality requirements and where high service levels and technical support
are needed.
Increasingly, though, even negotiations for the purchase of indirect
items such as office supplies and janitorial products are becoming more
complicated because they fall within a company’s overall business plan
to gain greater efficiencies in purchasing and inventory management.
68Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

Suppliers of both direct and indirect products need a common set ofcapabilities. Gaining greater purchasing efficiencies requires that suppliers of these products have the capabilities to set up electronic connections for purposes of receiving orders, sending delivery notifications,sending invoices, and receiving payments. Better inventory management requires that inventory levels be reduced, which often means suppliers need to make more frequent and smaller deliveries and orders
must be filled accurately and completely.
All these requirements need to be negotiated in addition to thebasic issues of products and prices. The negotiations must make tradeoffs between the unit price of a product and all the other value added
services that are required. These other services can either be paid for bya higher margin in the unit price, or by separate payments, or by somecombination of the two. Performance targets must be specified andpenalties and other fees defined when performance targets are not met.

Contract Management
Once contracts are in place, vendor performance against these contracts
must be measured and managed. Because companies are narrowing
down their base of suppliers, the performance of each supplier that ischosen becomes more important. A particular supplier may be the only
source of a whole category of products that a company needs and if it
is not meeting its contractual obligations, the activities that depend on
those products will suffer.
A company needs the ability to track the performance of its suppliers and hold them accountable to meet the service levels they agreed
to in their contract. Just as with consumption management, people in acompany need to routinely collect data about the performance of suppliers. Any supplier that consistently falls below requirements should bemade aware of their shortcomings and asked to correct them.

69

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Often the supplier themselves should be given responsibility for
tracking their own performance. They should be able to proactively takeaction to keep their performance up to contracted levels. An exampleof this is the concept of vendor managed inventory (VMI).VMI calls
for the vendor to monitor the inventory levels of its product within acustomer’s business. The vendor is responsible for watching usage rates
and calculating EOQs. The vendor proactively ships products to thecustomer locations that need them and invoices the customer for those
shipments under terms defined in the contract.

Credit and Collections (Source)

TE

AM
FL
Y

Procurement is the sourcing process a company uses to get the goods
and services it needs. Credit and collections is the sourcing process thata company uses to get its money. The credit operation screens potential
customers to make sure the company only does business with customers
who will be able to pay their bills. The collections operation is what
actually brings in the money that the company has earned.
Approving a sale is like making a loan for the sale amount for alength of time defined by the payment terms. Good credit management
tries to fulfill customer demand for products and also minimize theamount of money tied up in receivables. This is analogous to the way
good inventory management strives to meet customer demand and also
minimize the amount of money tied up in inventory.
The supply chains that a company participates in are often selectedon the basis of credit decisions. Much of the trust and cooperation thatis possible between companies who do business together is based upon
good credit ratings and timely payments of invoices. Credit decisions
affect who a company will sell to and also the terms of the sale. The
credit and collections function can be broken into three main categories
of activity:70

Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

1. Set Credit Policy
2. Implement Credit and Collections Practices
3. Manage Credit Risk

Set Credit Policy
Credit policy is set by senior managers in a company such as the controller, chief financial officer, treasurer, and chief executive officer.The firststep in this process is to review the performance of the company’s receivables. Every company has defined a set of measurements that they use to
analyze their receivables, such as: days sales outstanding (DSO); percent ofreceivables past customer payment terms; and bad debt write-off amountas percent of sales.What are the trends? Where are there problems?
Once management has an understanding of the company’s receivables situation and the trends affecting that situation, they can take thenext step which is to set or change risk acceptance criteria to respondto the state of the company’s receivables. These criteria should changeover time as economic and market conditions evolve. These criteria
define the kinds of credit risks that the company will take with different
kinds of customers and the payment terms that will be offered.

Implement Credit and Collections Practices
These activities involve putting in place and operating the proceduresthat will carry out and enforce the credit policies of the company. The
first major activity in this category is to work with the company salespeople to approve sales to specific customers. As noted earlier, making
a sale is like making a loan for the amount of the sale. Customers often
buy from a company because that company extends them larger linesof credit and longer payment terms than its competitors. Credit analysis
goes a long way to assure that this loan is only made to customers whowill pay it off promptly as called for by the terms of the sale.
71

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

After a sale is made, people in the credit area work with customers
to provide various kinds of service. They work with customers toprocess product returns and issue credit memos for returned products.
They work with customers to resolve disputes and clear up questions
by providing copies of contracts, purchase orders, and invoices.
The third major activity that is performed is collections. This is aprocess that starts with the ongoing maintenance of each customer’s
accounts payable status. Customers that have past due accounts are contacted and payments are requested. Sometimes new payment terms andschedules are negotiated.
The collections activity also includes the work necessary to receiveand process customer payments that can come in a variety of different
forms. Some customers will wish to pay by electronic funds transfer(EFT). Others will use bank drafts and revolving lines of credit or purchasing cards. If customers are in other countries there are still otherways that payment can be made, such as international letters of credit.

Manage Credit Risk
The credit function works to help the company take intelligent risks
that support its business plan. What may be a bad credit decision fromone perspective may be a good business decision from another perspective. If a company wants to gain market share in a certain area it
may make credit decisions that help it to do so. Credit people workwith other people in the business to find innovative ways to lower therisk of selling to new kinds of customers.
Managing risk can be accomplished by creating credit programs
that are tailored to the needs of customers in certain market segments
such as high technology companies, start-up companies, construction
contractors, or customers in foreign countries. Payment terms that are
attractive to customers in these market segments can be devised. Credit72Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

risks can be lowered by the use of credit insurance, liens on customer
assets, and government loan guarantees for exports.
For important customers and particularly large individual sales,
people in the credit area work with others in the company to structure
special deals just for a single customer. This increases the value that thecompany can provide to such a customer and can be a significant partof securing important new business.
EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Building a recognized and valued brand name is agoal that many companies try to accomplish. Doing this calls
for a company to be adaptable, to tailor its services tocustomers’ needs, and to achieve high levels of efficiency
in the other supply chain operations that it performs.
Waxie Sanitary Supply (www.waxie.com) is a distributor with locations throughout California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona.
Over the last 20 years they have been very successful in developing and promoting Waxie brand name products. Charles Wax is the
CEO and Cliff Robbins is the company’s Director of Information
Technology.
Charles Wax explained that, “The company was founded in 1945 by
my uncle Harry Wax and then my father Morris joined him soonafter. The company started under the name of San Diego Janitorial
Supply. We grew and in 1962 bought another company in southern
California named Kleenline. We kept both names because each hada loyal customer base. In the 1980s we expanded out of the southern California area and we felt the need for a new company namethat would convey who we were as we entered new markets.
“Uncle Harry was a Seabee in the navy during World War II. In thenavy he got the nickname “Waxie” and the logo he chose when he73

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
first started the company was a bee operating a floor waxing machine.
So it seemed natural for us to adopt the name Waxie and to use a
bee as our logo.
“We wanted to develop our own brand name because a lot of companies buy product and then forget where they bought it. If we put
our name on the product they would remember where they got it.
Also, if they like the product then they have to come to us to buy it.
We redesigned and standardized our logo and the company slogan
and put them on products, forms, trucks, brochures, everything.”
The first step is to create a brand name and the next step is to sellits benefits to customers. “We sell a lot of value added services,”
said Charles. “We educate the customer to use the best product for
their specific needs. We show them how to use dilution control to
optimize usage rates for chemicals. We show them how to use floor
machines to cut labor costs. We train the customer’s people in how
to use our products.
“It is easy for a competitor of ours to say, “We have the same item
and at a lower price.” We respond to this by educating customers to
the fact that 10 percent of their cost is product and the other 90
percent is labor. We can show them how to use our products to cut
their labor costs and that’s where they will see the big savings.
“We are always looking for ways to solve our customers’ problems.
We work with each customer to customize our service offerings forthem. For instance, we did a lot of work at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
To meet their delivery schedules, we got our drivers security clearance and worked closely with people running the event to bring ourtrucks in at night where and when they wanted them.”“We use technology to help us deliver the services that build the
Waxie brand,” Cliff Robbins said. “There is a system to help us do
regular surveys of customers and people who aren’t our customers to
identify their needs and spot market trends. We equip our sales and74Supply Chain Operations: Planning and Sourcing

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
service people in the field with laptops. They have the same accessto information as they would if they were in the office—complete
customer profiles, credit status, open issues, and sales history.”“There is now a web-based order entry system that lets customers
view their own customized product catalogs and prices,” Cliff continued. “We are working with the sales people to train our customers to use this system.” Charles added that, “There is great
benefit to the customers. They can order 24 by 7, they can make up
their own order guides, they can see product pictures, and they can
see usage information. As customers start using the system, it cuts
our cost to handle the orders and we are also seeing an increase in
the average order size from these customers.”
Delivering the value that makes up the Waxie brand requires a coordinated effort from everyone in the company. “To focus everyone on
pulling together to build the value of the Waxie brand, we track a few
simple performance measures,” explained Charles. “Gross margin
percent measures the productivity of the sales process and grossmargin growth measures the overall growth of the company. We
have a program we call “All Sell All Grow.” It is the bonus programfor all non-sales people. We post branch and overall company grossmargin growth every month throughout the company. So all employees know how we are doing and how they stand on their yearlybonus.”“Having our own brand helps us manage our margins. It insulates
us somewhat from the actions of the national brand name manufacturers,” observed Charles. “We wanted to create a brand thatstands for who we are. To remind us why we are here and to remindcustomers of our value.”75

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Chapter Summary
The business operations that drive the supply chain can be grouped into
four major categories: 1) Plan; 2) Source; 3) Make; and 4) Deliver. The
business operations that comprise these categories are the day-to-day
operations that determine how well the supply chain works. Companies
must continually make improvements in these areas.
Planning refers to all the operations needed to plan and organize
the operations in the other three categories. This includes operations
such as demand forecasting, product pricing, and inventory management. Increasingly, it is these planning operations that determine thepotential efficiency of the supply chain.
Sourcing includes the activities necessary to acquire the inputs tocreate products or services. This includes operations such as procurement and credit and collections. Both these operations have a big impact
on the efficiency of a supply chain.

76

CHAPTER 3

Supply Chain Operations:
Making and Delivering
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Exercise an executive level understanding of operations
involved in the categories of making products anddelivering products• Assess supply operations in your company that may becandidates for outsourcing

any companies and the supply chains they participate in serve
customers who are growing more sophisticated every year anddemanding higher levels of service. Continuous improvements tothe operations described in this chapter are needed to deliver the efficiency and responsiveness that evolving supply chains require.

M

Product Design (Make)
Product designs and selections of the components needed to build theseproducts are based on the technology available and product performance requirements. Until recently, little thought was given to how thedesign of a product and the selection of its components affect the supply
chain required to make the product. Yet these costs can become 50 percent or more of the product’s cost.
When considering product design from a supply chain perspective theaim is to design products with fewer parts, simple designs, and modular
77

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

construction from generic sub-assemblies. This way the parts can beobtained from a small group of preferred suppliers. Inventory can be
kept in the form of generic sub-assemblies at appropriate locations inthe supply chain. There will not be the need to hold large finished goods
inventories because customer demand can be met quickly by assembling
final products from generic sub-assemblies as customer orders arrive.
The supply chain required to support a product is molded by the
product’s design. The more flexible, responsive, and cost efficient the
supply chain, the more likely the product will succeed in its market. To
illustrate this point, consider the following scenario.
Fantastic Company designs a fantastic new home entertainment system with wide screen TV and surround sound. It performs to demanding specifications and delivers impressive results. But the electronics thatpower the entertainment center are built with components from 12 different suppliers.
Demand takes off and the company ramps up production. Managing
quality control and delivery schedules for 12 suppliers is a challenge.
More procurement managers and staff are hired. Assembly of the components is complex and delays in the delivery of components from anyof the suppliers can slow down production rates. So buffer stocks of finished goods are kept to compensate for this.
Several new suppliers were required to provide the specified productcomponents. One of them has quality control problems and has to be
replaced and another supplier decides after several months to cease production of the component it supplies to Fantastic Company. They bringout a new component with similar features but not an exact replacement.
Fantastic Company has to suspend production of the home entertainment system while a team of engineers redesigns the part of the systemthat used the discontinued component so that it can use the new component. During this time, buffer stocks run out in some locations and sales
are lost when customers go elsewhere.
78

Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

A competitor called Nimble Company is attracted by the success of
Fantastic Company and comes out with a competing product. Nimble
Company designed a product with fewer parts and uses components fromonly four suppliers. The cost of procurement is much lower since they
only have to coordinate four suppliers instead of 12. There are no production delays due to lack of component parts and product assembly iseasier.
While Fantastic Company, who pioneered the market, struggles witha balky supply chain, Nimble Company provides the market with lower
cost and more reliable supply of the product. Nimble Company with its
responsive and less costly supply chain takes market share away from
Fantastic Company.
What can be learned here? Product design defines the shape of the
supply chain and this has a great impact on the cost and availability ofthe product. If product design, procurement, and manufacturing people
can work together in the design of a product, there is a tremendous
opportunity to create products that will be successful and profitable.
There is a natural tendency for design, procurement, and manufacturing people to have different agendas unless their actions are coordinated.
Design people are concerned with meeting the customer requirements.
Procurement people are interested in getting the best prices from a groupof pre-screened preferred suppliers. Folks in manufacturing are looking
for simple fabrication and assembly methods and long production runs.
Cross functional product design teams with representatives fromthese three groups have the opportunity to blend the best insights fromeach group. Cross functional teams can review the new product designand discuss the relevant issues. Can existing preferred suppliers provide
the components needed? How many new suppliers are needed? What
opportunities are there to simplify the design and reduce the number ofsuppliers? What happens if a supplier stops producing a certain component? How can the assembly of the product be made easier?
79

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

At the same time they are reviewing product designs, a cross functional team can evaluate existing preferred suppliers and manufacturing
facilities. What components can existing suppliers provide? What are
their service levels and technical support capabilities? How large aworkforce and what kind of skills are needed to make the product?
How much capacity is needed and which facilities should be used?
A product design that does a good job of coordinating the threeperspectives—design, procurement, and manufacturing—will result in a
product that can be supported by an efficient supply chain. This will
give the product a fast time to market and a competitive cost.

AM
FL
Y

Production Scheduling (Make)•

TE

Production scheduling allocates available capacity (equipment, labor,
and facilities) to the work that needs to be done. The goal is to use available capacity in the most efficient and profitable manner. The production scheduling operation is a process of finding the right balance
between several competing objectives:
High utilization rates—This often means long production runs
and centralized manufacturing and distribution centers. The
idea is to generate and benefit from economies of scale.

• Low inventory levels—This usually means short production

runs and just-in-time delivery of raw materials. The idea is tominimize the assets and cash tied up in inventory.

• High levels of customer service—Often requires high levels of

inventory or many short production runs. The aim is to provide the customer with quick delivery of products and not to
run out of stock in any product.

When a single product is to be made in a dedicated facility, scheduling means organizing operations as efficiently as possible and runningthe facility at the level required to meet demand for the product.When80Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

several different products are to be made in a single facility or on a single
assembly line, this is more complex. Each product will need to be produced for some period of time and then time will be needed to switch
over to production of the next product.
The first step in scheduling a multi-product production facility is todetermine the economic lot size for the production runs of each product.
This is a calculation much like the EOQ (economic order quantity)
calculation used in the inventory control process. The calculation of
economic lot size involves balancing the production set up costs for a
product with the cost of carrying that product in inventory. If set ups
are done frequently and production runs are done in small batches, theresult will be low levels of inventory but the production costs will behigher due to increased set up activity. If production costs are minimized
by doing long production runs, then inventory levels will be higher andproduct inventory carrying costs will be higher.
Once production quantities have been determined, the second stepis to set the right sequence of production runs for each product. The
basic rule is that if inventory for a certain product is low relative to its
expected demand, then production of this product should be scheduled
ahead of other products that have higher levels of inventory relative totheir expected demand. A common technique is to schedule production
runs based on the concept of a product’s “run out time.” The run out
time is the number of days or weeks it would take to deplete the product inventory on hand given its expected demand. The run out time
calculation for a product is expressed as
R=P/D
where
R = run out timeP = number of units of product on hand
D = product demand in units for a day or week81

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The scheduling process is a repetitive process that begins with a calculation of the run out times for all products—their R values. The first
production run is then scheduled for the product with the lowest R
value. Assume that the economic lot size for that product has been produced and then recalculate all product R values. Again, select the productwith the lowest R value, and schedule its production run next. Assume
the economic lot size is produced for this product and again recalculate

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Production Scheduling
Production scheduling is a constant balancing act between utilization rates, inventory levels, and customer service levels.

82

Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

all product R values. This scheduling process can be repeated as often
as necessary to create a production schedule going as far into the future
as needed.
After scheduling is done, the resulting inventory should be continuously checked against actual demand. Is inventory building up too
fast? Should the demand number be changed in the calculation of run
out time? Reality rarely happens as planned so production schedules
need to be constantly adjusted.

Facility Management (Make)
All facility management decisions happen within the constraints set bydecisions about facility locations. Location is one of the five supply
chain drivers discussed in Chapter 1. It is usually quite expensive to shut
down a facility or to build a new one so companies live with the consequences of decisions they make about where to locate their facilities.
Ongoing facility management takes location as a given and focuses on
how best to use the capacity available. This involves making decisions
in three areas:
1. The role each facility will play
2. How capacity is allocated in each facility
3. The allocation of suppliers and markets to each facility

The role each facility will play involves decisions that determine
what activities will be performed in which facilities. These decisions
have a big impact on the flexibility of the supply chain. They largely
define the ways that the supply chain can change its operations to meetchanging market demand. If a facility is designated to perform only asingle function or serve only a single market, it usually cannot easily beshifted to perform a different function or serve a different market if
supply chain needs change.

83

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

How capacity is allocated in each facility is dictated by the role thatthe facility plays. Capacity allocation decisions result in the equipment
and labor that is employed at the facility. It is easier to change capacity
allocation decisions than to change location decisions but still it is notcost effective to make frequent changes in allocation. So, once decided,
capacity allocation strongly influences supply chain performance andprofitability. Allocating too little capacity to a facility creates inability tomeet demand and loss of sales. Too much capacity in a facility results in
low utilization rates and higher supply chain costs.
The allocation of suppliers and markets to each facility is influenced by the first two decisions. Depending on the role that a facility
plays and the capacity allocated to it, the facility will require certain
kinds of suppliers and the products and volumes that it can handlemean that it can support certain types of markets. Decisions about the
suppliers and markets to allocate to a facility will affect the costs fortransporting supplies to the facility and transporting finished products
from the facility to customers. These decisions also affect the overall
supply chain’s ability to meet market demands.

Order Management (Deliver)
Order management is the process of passing order information from
customers back through the supply chain from retailers to distributors
to service providers and producers. This process also includes passing
information about order delivery dates, product substitutions, and backorders forward through the supply chain to customers. This process haslong relied on the use of the telephone and paper documents such aspurchase orders, sales orders, change orders, pick tickets, packing lists,
and invoices.
A company generates a purchase order and calls a supplier to fill theorder. The supplier who gets the call either fills the order from its own
84Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

IN THE REAL WORLDPerkins (www.perkins1.com) is a distributor of foodservice paper products, specialty and bakery foods, restaurant equipment, and sanitary supplies serving New Englandand the Mid-Atlantic states. The company has just completed
a 2 1/2 year process of planning, building, and moving into
their new headquarters and distribution center.
As the company grew and acquired other companies, it wound up
operating out of six different locations. Over time it became increasingly apparent that this collection of facilities was not able to effectively support the business. Gary Perkins is the President and CEO
while Larry Perkins is the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Larry offered, “We had duplicate inventory in these locations andwe had five trucks and five drivers whose sole activity was moving
inventory around between these locations. We were becoming lessprofitable in terms of return on sales even though total revenues
continued to go up.
“Growth of SKUs created bottlenecks in the warehouse at the storage and picking slots and at the loading docks. Introduction of new
product categories was stymied. And when we acquired companies
there was no opportunity to fold their operations into our existing
facilities. This caused us to squander efficiency realization.”
People from the company traveled and visited other best-in-classfacilities to see what other companies were doing. They also hired
a consulting firm that specializes in facilities planning and design towork with them on the design of their new location. There were threemain steps in the process. The first step was to figure, based oninventory requirements, the size of the new facility they needed. The
second step was to choose the location for the facility and the last
step was to design the operating procedures and systems and thebuilding itself.

85

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
They analyzed the business and created projections for the growthof sales in each of their product categories. Design of the new building was based on six-year projections. “This means one year to build
the building and five years of growth after that,” said Larry. “We cango from a total of around 348,000 square feet now to 530,000
square feet in the future. We looked for property that would accommodate this size of a facility as well as provide us with space toexpand later. We found the perfect location logistically but could not
find the right land—so we kept looking in concentric circles out fromthere until we found a property that fit our needs, our personnel’s
needs, and our budget.
“Then we needed to decide what kind of warehouse operating procedures and systems to use. Different kinds of inventory and different product categories had different needs. In effect, what we did
was to wrap the new buiilding around the inventory. We designed
five kinds of aisles—conventional aisles, very narrow aisles, twokinds of high velocity storage aisles with a pick tunnel, andcarousels. Each aisle has its own types of pallet positions and picking slots. The high velocity pick aisles accommodate our fastest
turning items. The conventional aisles are for the items that are
picked over 10 times per week and the very narrow aisles are foritems we pick 10 or less times a week. The carousels handle small
box items or broken cases.”
The new facility was also designed to accommodate other needs.
There are very deep loading docks to allow fast loading and unloading of trucks. The loading docks also accommodate cross docking.
There are parts of the warehouse with different temperatures—
ambient room temperature, frozen temperature, and also a cool
termperature area to support new product lines.
A lot of thought went into the design of the administrative and training areas of the facility and into an area to showcase equipment andsupplies that the company sells. “We actually built these areas to86Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
accommodate 10-year projections,” said Larry. “We have a muchlarger auditorium for group meetings and presentations. And we
added a test kitchen to support in-house meals and “cuttings” offoods being considered for stocking. The test kitchen also showcases our restaurant equipment offerings. The site layout, technicalcapabilities, size, and design features make this one of the best
foodservice distribution facilities in the country.”
As they began to move into the new facility, timing and coordination
were critical. “We moved our smaller locations into the building first.
It gave us time to try out new procedures and debug them. We use
RF (radio frequency) and bar coding for receiving, drops, picking, andinventory control. We use picking techniques like route picking andwave picking. We needed to train our people, try out the technology,
and make adjustments without disrupting our ongoing business.”
The cost of building the new facility will be paid for by increased
operating efficiencies in the next two to three years. Efficiencies will
also be gained in reduced rent and utilities costs, lower inventory
carrying costs, and reduced operating expenses. Larry pointed out
some other significant benefits, “All my competitors have the same
products that I do so I need to offer other capabilities to attract customers. Now we can provide increased customer service levels anda range of other offerings to customers. This facility is also very
beneficial in helping us to attract and retain good people. People
like to be associated with success.”
As a company enters into a new phase of its growth, having the rightfacilities to support that growth are key to its continued success.
Larry Perkins summed up the company’s move by saying, “Our management team the last few years has been buried by the day-to-day
demands of just running the business because of the complexity ofit all. Now with this move we can get back to focusing on how tomake the business more efficient and looking into the more longterm growth and profit issues.”

87

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

inventory or sources required products from other suppliers. If the supplier fills the order from its inventory, it turns the customer purchaseorder into a pick ticket, a packing list, and an invoice. If products are
sourced from other suppliers, the original customer purchase order isturned into a purchase order from the first supplier to the next supplier.
That supplier in turn will either fill the order from its inventory or source
products from other suppliers. The purchase order it receives is again
turned into documents such as pick tickets, packing lists, and invoices.
This process is repeated through the length of the supply chain.
In the last 20 years or so, supply chains have become noticeably
more complex than they previously were. Companies now deal withmultiple tiers of suppliers, outsourced service providers, and distribution channel partners. This complexity has evolved in response tochanges in the way products are sold, increased customer service expectations, and the need to respond quickly to new market demands.
The traditional order management process has longer lead and lagtimes built into it due to the slow movement of data back and forth in
the supply chain. This slow movement of data works well enough insome simple supply chains, but in complex supply chains faster andmore accurate movement of data is necessary to achieve the responsiveness and efficiency that is needed. Modern order management
focuses on techniques to enable faster and more accurate movement oforder related data.
In addition, the order management process needs to do exception
handling and provide people with ways to quickly spot problems andgive them the information they need to take corrective action. Thismeans the processing of routine orders should be automated and ordersthat require special handling because of issues such as insufficientinventory, missed delivery dates, or customer change requests need to
be brought to the attention of people who can handle these issues.

88Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

Because of these requirements, order management is beginning tooverlap and merge with a function called customer relationship management (CRM) that is often thought of as a marketing and sales function.
Because of supply chain complexity and changing market demands,
order management is a process that is evolving rapidly. However, a
handful of basic principles can be listed that guide this operation:
Enter the order data once and only once—Capture the data
electronically as close to its original source as possible and do
not manually reenter the data as it moves through the supply
chain. It is usually best if the customers themselves enter theirorders into an order entry system. This system should thentransfer the relevant order data to other systems and supply
chain participants as needed for creation of purchase orders,pick tickets, invoices, and so on.

•• Automate the order handling—Manual intervention should be

minimized for the routing and filling of routine orders.
Computer systems should send needed data to the appropriate
locations to fulfill routine orders. Exception handling should
identify orders with problems that require people to get
involved to fix them.

• Make order status visible to customers and service agents—Let

customers track their orders through all the stages from entryof the order to delivery of the products. Customers should be
able to see order status on demand without having to enlist
the assistance of other people.When an order runs into problems, bring the order to the attention of service agents who
can resolve the problems.

• Integrate order management systems with other related systems tomaintain data integrity—Order entry systems need productdescriptive data and product prices to guide the customer inmaking their choices. The systems that maintain this productdata should communicate with order management systems.

89

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Order data is needed by other systems to update inventory
status, calculate delivery schedules, and generate invoices.
Order data should automatically flow into these systems in an
accurate and timely manner.
TIPS & TECHNIQUES

TE

AM
FL
Y

Four Rules for
Efficient Order Management

90Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

D elivery Scheduling (Deliver)
The delivery scheduling operation is of course strongly affected by thedecisions made concerning the modes of transportation that will be
used. The delivery scheduling process works within the constraints set
by transportation decisions. For most modes of transportation there are
two types of delivery methods: direct deliveries and milk run deliveries.

Direct Deliveries
Direct deliveries are deliveries made from one originating location to
one receiving location.With this method of delivery the routing is simply a matter of selecting the shortest path between the two locations.
Scheduling this type of delivery involves decisions about the quantity
to deliver and the frequency of deliveries to each location. The advantages of this delivery method are found in the simplicity of operations
and delivery coordination. Since this method moves products directlyfrom the location where they are made or stored in inventory to a location where the products will be used, it eliminates any intermediate
operations that combine different smaller shipments into a single, combined larger shipment.
Direct deliveries are efficient if the receiving location generates
economic order quantities (EOQs) that are the same size as the shipment quantities needed to make best use of the transportation mode
being used. For instance, if a receiving location gets deliveries by truck
and its EOQ is the same size as a truck load (TL) then the direct delivery
method makes sense. If the EOQ does not equal TL quantities, thenthis delivery method becomes less efficient. Receiving expenses incurredat the receiving location are high because this location must handle separate deliveries from the different suppliers of all the products it needs.

91

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Milk Run Deliveries
Milk run deliveries are deliveries that are routed to either bring products from a single originating location to multiple receiving locations
or deliveries that bring products from multiple originating locations toa single receiving location. Scheduling milk run deliveries is a much
more complex task than scheduling direct deliveries. Decisions must be
made about delivery quantities of different products, about the frequency of deliveries, and most importantly about the routing andsequencing of pickups and deliveries.
The advantages of this method of delivery are in the fact that more
efficient use can be made of the mode of transportation used and thecost of receiving deliveries is lower because receiving locations get
fewer and larger deliveries. If the EOQs of different products neededby a receiving location are less than truck load (LTL) amounts, milk run
deliveries allow orders for different products to be combined until the
resulting quantity equals a truck load or TL amount. If there are manyreceiving locations that each need smaller amounts of products, they can
all be served by a single truck that starts its delivery route with a TL
amount of products.
There are two main techniques for routing milk run deliveries.
Each routing technique has its strengths and weaknesses and each technique is more or less effective depending on the situation in which it isused and the accuracy of the data that is available. Both of these techniques are supported by software packages. The two techniques are:
The savings matrix technique•• The generalized assignment technique

The savings matrix technique is the simpler of the two techniques andcan be used to assign customers to vehicles and to design routes where
there are delivery time windows at receiving locations and other con-92

Supply Chain Operations: Making and Deliveringstraints. The technique is robust and can be modified to take into accountmany different constraints. It provides a reasonably good routing solutionthat can be put to practical use. Its weakness lies in the fact that it is often
possible to find more cost effective solutions using the generalized assignment technique. This technique is best used when there are many different
constraints that need to be satisfied by the delivery schedule.
The generalized assignment technique is more sophisticated andusually gives a better solution than the savings matrix technique when
there are no constraints on the delivery schedule other than the carrying capacity of the delivery vehicle. The disadvantage of this techniqueis that it has a harder time generating good delivery schedules as more
and more constraints are included. This technique is best used when thedelivery constraints are limited to vehicle capacity or to total travel time.

Delivery Sources
Deliveries can be made to customers from two sources:
Single product locations•• Distribution centers

Single product locations are facilities such as factories or warehouses
where a single product or a narrow range of related items are available
for shipment. These facilities are appropriate when there is a predictable
and high level of demand for the products they offer and where shipments will be made only to customer locations that can receive the products in large, bulk amounts. They offer great economies of scale whenused effectively.
Distribution centers are facilities where bulk shipments of products
arrive from single product locations.When suppliers are located a long
distance away from customers, the use of a distribution center provides
for economies of scale in long-distance transportation to bring large
amounts of products to a location close to the final customers.
93

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The distribution center may warehouse inventory for future shipment or it may be used primarily for crossdocking. Crossdocking is atechnique pioneered by Wal-Mart where truckload shipments of single
products arrive and are unloaded. At the same time these trucks arebeing unloaded, their bulk shipments are being broken down into
smaller lots and combined with small lots of other products and loaded
right back onto other trucks. These trucks then deliver the products totheir final locations.
Distribution centers that use crossdocking provide several benefits.
The first is that product flows faster in the supply chain since little
inventory is held in storage. The second is that there is less handlingexpense since product does not have to be put away and then retrieved
later from storage. The benefits of crossdocking can be realized when
there are large predictable product volumes and when economies ofscale can be had on both the inbound and outbound transportation.
However, crossdocking is a demanding technique and it requires a considerable degree of coordination between inbound and outbound shipments.
Transporting and delivering goods is expensive so capabilities inthis area are closely aligned with the actual needs of the market that the
supply chain serves. Highly responsive supply chains usually have hightransport and delivery costs because their customers expect quick delivery. This results in many small shipments of product. Less responsive
supply chains can aggregate orders over a period of time and makefewer and larger shipments. This results in more economies of scale andlower transport costs.

94

Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

IN THE REAL WORLD

Eastern Bag & Paper Company (www.easternbag.com) is a distributor of paper products, industrial
packaging, foodservice, and janitorial and sanitary maintenance products. It operates out of two distribution centers, one in Connecticut and one in Massachusetts and has
a fleet of 44 straight trucks and 4 tractor trailers. Morethan four million cases are shipped and 200,000 deliveries
are made each year.
Eastern Bag & Paper has developed a very efficient delivery scheduling operation and it continues to innovate and refine the processes that support this operation. Meredith Reuben is the company’s
CEO and Don Burton is the Director of Operations. “Don has put aprocess in place,” said Meredith Reuben, “and he continuously
measures and refines the process so that it supports high levels ofcustomer service and is at the same time very cost efficient. He
has saved the company a lot of money.”
The process begins at 4:00 p.m. every business day. All orders
received up to that time are downloaded from the ERP (enterprise
resource planning) system to an automatic delivery routing systemcalled RoadShow. “We have built in customized parameters,” Donexplained. “Things like tight delivery windows for certain customers
and route preferences so the system creates routes and schedules
that are very efficient.” It takes the RoadShow system and ourrouter about two hours to calculate the routes and schedules for all
the trucks.
At 6:00 p.m. the routes and schedules are uploaded back into the
ERP and the picking labels are printed in each of the distribution
centers. By 6:30 p.m. each location has a complete set of pick labels.
The pick labels at each location are tailored to the way each warehouse is laid out. The pick labels tell the picker where to go for each95

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
item and what quantity to retrieve. Along with the labels that are
attached to each case, a pick list is generated to accommodate aquality control audit.
“We have a QA process that randomly selects orders to audit,” Donsaid. “We use the pick list and check it against the set of labels oneach case. We probably audit about 10 percent of orders. We trackerrors such as “right label on wrong case,” or “short, case not ontruck,” or “short, can’t find case.” Errors are traced back to theindividuals who caused them and we show these people what they
did wrong.”
Loading the trucks takes 8 to 10 hours. Loading starts by 7:00 p.m.
and is usually finished by 4:00 a.m. The trucks are on the road soonafter. All trucks are equipped with a GPS (global positioning satellite) system. This system can pinpoint the location of each truck during the day and it creates an activity log that records the truck’s
movements.
“RoadShow creates a delivery schedule and GPS allows us to compare the actual route versus the planned route,” Don explained.
“The drivers are always saying RoadShow doesn’t accurately reflect
conditions. We can now create very realistic RoadShow schedules
using corrective information that we get from GPS. Drivers are able
to achieve 95 percent on-time performance against the schedules
that we create.”
The company continuously measures their performance and makes
adjustments as needed to maintain high levels of customer service.
There is a zero defect program in place which follows a customer
order from entry to delivery. Meredith explained that, “We track ‘perfect orders’ and rate ourselves on that. A perfect order is an orderthat results in a perfect delivery—the complete order delivered to
the right place at the right time, and a perfect invoice—all items correctly priced and identified. Most companies only track order fillrates. We take a more inclusive view of order fulfillment by using the96Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
perfect order concept. When we first started tracking we were onlyaround 53 percent perfect. We are now in the low 80s and will soon
hit 85 percent perfect.”“Our performance measurements allow us to track individual productivity and error rates by worker,” said Don. “We have developed
standard productivity rates for different jobs that we can use to compare against the actual productivity of each person. Our error
reports allow us to identify the person and the department wherean error originated. This is the information we need to continuously
make adjustments to our operations so as to keep up high service
levels and also keep our costs as low as possible.”
It is the continuous measuring and adjusting that makes the activities of delivery scheduling and order fulfillment into a core competency. For the vast majority of distributors, regardless of the products they distribute, these two activities must be core competencies
if the company is to be successful. “Bottom line, distribution is a 2
percent to 4 percent net business and there is no room for errors
and low productivity,” Meredith observed. “Measuring people andprocesses to look for improvements is something that goes on all
the time. Process reengineering and investments in new technology
to decrease errors and increase productivity is something that we
do every year.”

S upply Chain Operations Can Be Outsourced
After reading about the 10 basic supply chain operations in this chapter
and the previous one, which of these operations are done by in-housestaff in your company? How many of these operations are core competencies? How many of these operations bring money into your company
and how many of them consume money?
The relentless pressure on profit margins that free markets create is adriving force behind the growth of outsourcing.What may be considered97

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

as overhead for Company A may be a service that Company B can offer
and make a profit doing so. Company B may be able to offer this service
for a price lower than it costs Company A to do it in-house. Company
A is going to consider outsourcing.
The traditional participants in supply chains are producers, logistics
providers, distributors, and retailers. How many of the 10 supply chain
operations can be called core competencies of any of these organizations? There are some operations such as credit and collections, product design, and order management that may not be a core competencyof any of the traditional participants. This creates opportunities for new
service providers to take on these operations and offer them to theother supply chain participants. All 10 of these operations need to bedone for the supply chain as a whole, but they do not all need to bedone by any single company and indeed they cannot all be done wellby any single company.
The other force that drives outsourcing is the growing sophistication of the markets that supply chains serve. Gone are the days when
Ford Motor Company could run a vertically integrated company that
did everything from mine iron ore to produce steel to design and build
automobiles. That structure was only possible because the markets it
served were content to buy mass quantities of standard products. As
Henry Ford said when asked about what colors his customers could
choose from,“They can have any color they want as long as it’s black.”
Markets today demand and pay for all sorts of innovations, customized
features, and services. This creates complexity in the supply chain andparticipants who specialize in certain areas bring the expertise and efficiencies that are required to manage this complexity.

98Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Many of the supply chain management concepts
originated in the manufacturing sector. Professor Wallace
Hopp is the Breed University Professor and a director of
the Master of Management and Manufacturing Program at
the McCormick School of Engineering and Kellogg
Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.
He is co-author of Factory Physics.
Historically, many of the trends and techniques that now guide supply
chain management originated in the manufacturing sector. Professor
Hopp points out one such technique that now gets a lot of attention
in supply chain management. It is a technique called variability pooling or postponement. “Using this technique manufacturers and now
whole supply chains can make and stock inventory composed ofgeneric parts and then assemble these parts only at the last moment
to create a specific final product.” Manufacturers such as Hewlett
Packard developed this technique because it allowed them to build
and keep on hand large inventories of parts from which to quickly
assemble finished goods. At the same time they were able to defermuch of the risk of holding that inventory.
A lot of the risk of holding inventory comes from the chance that it
will not match market demand and become obsolete. “If a company
or supply chain keeps its inventory as parts that can be assembled
into a number of different final products, then there is the opportunity
to quickly build a final product only when the demand for that specificproduct exists. The risk of building any product beforehand basedon imperfect demand forecasts is avoided.”In order for companies in a supply chain to employ this technique,it creates a need for these companies to collaborate in the design
process. And collaborative design is a growing trend in many supply
chains. This is especially apparent in the supply chains that feed the99

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
automotive industry. “The big car companies are looking for ways to
get their suppliers more involved in the design of new vehicles. They
are driving the design function down not just to their tier one suppliers but even further down to the suppliers of those suppliers.”
The idea is to design a car composed of many generic modules.
“This can really shorten the time to market for a new product.
Honda is getting very good at this so they get new cars to market
faster than other car makers. They do this by breaking a new car intosub-sections that can be designed and built simultaneously by different suppliers and then delivered to Honda for final assembly.”

TE

AM
FL
Y

When asked about the trend away from vertical integration toward
outsourcing, Professor Hopp feels that there are limits to how far
outsourcing can go and that some companies are now bumping up
against those limits. For instance he said, “Ford has worked withsome of its suppliers to create the Ford suppliers industrial park,
south of Chicago, next to its factory that is gearing up to produce its
crossover vehicle. Co-located suppliers have built their plants rightnext to the Ford plant. The advantages are that engineers can talkwith each other and the movement of parts from one plant to another is very quick. The disadvantages are that this arrangement is verymuch like having one vertically integrated operation. Since everyone
is in the same location, problems that affect one company will probably also affect the others such as labor unrest, transportation
delays, or power outages.
“Some companies have swung back a bit on outsourcing and brought
operations back in house. If you are a big enough company why
wouldn’t you do as much of the common commodity manufacturing
as you can? You get economies of scale when you do this. The moredifferent products that you make, the more products that you canmake a profit margin on. If all you are actually making is 5 percent
of your final product then you don’t have much to defend or workwith. You are in danger of defining yourself so narrowly that you lose
the ability to spot new trends and new applications for your products.

100Supply Chain Operations: Making and Delivering

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)“A company has to be very careful, however, to select what it cancompete on. It has to know what its core competencies are. BreedTechnologies is a well-known maker of automotive safety systems.
For a while they were very successful in making a lot of genericparts that were later assembled into finished products. In the end
though, the products they were making got outside of their corecompetencies and they ran into trouble.”

Chapter Summary
The Make category includes the operations required to develop andbuild the products and services that a supply chain provides. Operations
that are in this category are: product design; production management;
and facility and management. The Deliver category of operations encompasses the activities that are part of receiving customer orders and delivering products to customers. The two main operations are order entry/order fulfillment and product delivery. These two operations constitutethe core connections between companies in a supply chain.
The relentless pressure on profit margins that free markets create isa driving force behind the growth of outsourcing. What may be considered as overhead for Company A may be a service that Company B
can offer and make a profit doing so. Company B may be able to offer
this service for a price lower than it costs Company A to do it in-house.
Company A is going to consider outsourcing.

101

CHAPTER 4

Supply Chain Coordinationand Use of Technology
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Understand a common supply chain dynamic that is amajor contributor to the “boom to bust” business cycle• Appreciate the factors that contribute to this supply
chain dynamic• Evaluate ways to combat this dynamic• Assess the technology that is available to support andenable effective supply chain coordination

he spread of high speed data communications networks and computer technology has made it possible to manage the supply chain
with a level of precision that was not feasible as recently as the mid1980s. Those organizations that learn to use the techniques and technologies that are now available can build supply chains that have a competitive
advantage in their markets.
Because the capability exists to react much more quickly to changes
in market demand, this capability is now a point of competition. Businesscompetition based on supply chain efficiency is becoming a central fact
in many markets. To develop this capability, individual companies andentire supply chains need to learn new behaviors and they need to enable
these new behaviors with the use of appropriate technology.

T

103

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The “Bullwhip” Ef fect
One of the most common dynamics in supply chains is a phenomenathat has been dubbed “the bullwhip effect.” What happens is that smallchanges in product demand by the consumer at the front of the supply
chain translate into wider and wider swings in demand experienced bycompanies further back in the supply chain. Companies at different
stages in the supply chain come to have very different pictures of market demand and the result is a breakdown in supply chain coordination.
Companies behave in ways that at first create product shortages andthen lead to an excess supply of products.
This dynamic plays out on a larger scale in certain industries in what
is called a “boom to bust” business cycle. In particular this affects industries that serve developing and growth markets where demand can suddenly grow. Good examples of this can be found in the industries thatserve the telecommunications equipment or computer components markets. The cycle starts when strong market demand creates a shortage of
product. Distributors and manufacturers steadily increase their inventories
and production rates in response to the demand. At some point either
demand changes or the supply of product exceeds the demand level.
Distributors and manufacturers do not at first realize that supply exceeds
demand and they continue building the supply. Finally the glut of product is so large that everyone realizes there is too much. Manufacturers shut
down plants and lay off workers. Distributors are stuck with inventories
that decrease in value and can take years to work down.
This dynamic can be modeled in a simple supply chain that contains
a retailer, a distributor, and a manufacturer. In the 1960s a simulation
game was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan
School of Management that illustrates how the bullwhip effect develops.
The simulation game they developed is called the “beer game.” It shows
what happens in a hypothetical supply chain that supports a group of104

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g yretail stores that sell beer, snacks, and other convenience items. The
results of the beer game simulation teach a lot about how to coordinate
the actions of different companies in a supply chain.
Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline (Senge, Peter M., 1990,
The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,
New York: Doubleday/Currency, Chapter 3), devotes a chapter to exploring how the bullwhip effect gathers momentum and what can be doneto avoid it. The beer game starts with retailers experiencing a sudden but
small increase in customer demand for a certain brand of beer called
Lover’s Beer. Orders are batched up by retailers and passed on to the distributors who deliver the beer. Initially, these orders exceed the inventory
that distributors have on hand so they ration out their supplies of Lover’s
Beer to the retailers and place even larger orders for the beer with thebrewery that makes Lover’s Beer. The brewery cannot instantly increase
production of the beer so it rations out the beer it can produce to the distributors and begins building additional production capacity.
At first the scarcity of the beer prompts panic buying and hoarding
behavior. Then as the brewery ramps up its production rate and begins
shipping the product in large quantities, the orders that had been steadily
increasing due to panic buying suddenly decline. The glut of productfills up the distributors’ warehouses, fills all the retailers’ unfilled backorders, and exceeds the actual consumer demand. The brewery is left withexcess production capacity, the distributors are stuck with excess inventory, and the retailers either cancel their beer orders or run discountpromotions to move the product. Everybody loses money. Exhibit 4.1
illustrates how each company sees product demand and the distortion
that causes such havoc.
The costs of the bullwhip effect are felt by all members of the supply
chain. Manufacturers add extra production capacity to satisfy an orderstream that is much more volatile than actual demand. Distributors carry

105

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 4.1

Product Demand Distortion Swings(The “Bullwhip” Effect)
Inventory levels in supply chain over time illustrating the wild swings
that develop as product demand distortion moves from customer
to retailer to distributor to manufacturer. Swings in product demand
appear more pronounced to companies further up the supply chain.
This distortion makes effective supply chain management very
difficult.

106

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

extra inventory to cover the variability in order levels. Transportation
costs increase because excess transportation capacity has to be added tocover the periods of high demand. Along with transportation costs, laborcosts also go up in order to respond to the high demand periods. Retailers
experience problems with product availability and extended replenishment lead times. During periods of high demand, there are times when
the available capacity and inventory in the supply chain cannot cover theorders being placed.This results in product rationing, longer order replenishment cycles, and lost sales due to lack of inventory.

C oordination in the Supply Chain
Research into the bullwhip effect has identified five major factors thatcause the effect. These factors interact with each other in different
combinations in different supply chains but the net effect is that theygenerate the wild demand swings that make it so hard to run an efficient supply chain. These factors must be understood and addressed inorder to coordinate the actions of any supply chain. They are:
1. Demand forecasting
2. Order batching
3. Product rationing
4. Product pricing
5. Performance incentives

Demand Forecasting
Demand forecasting based on orders received instead of end user demanddata will inherently become more and more inaccurate as it moves up
the supply chain. Companies that are removed from contact with theend user can lose touch with actual market demand if they view theirrole as simply filling the orders placed with them by their immediatecustomers. Each company in a supply chain sees fluctuations in the107

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

orders that come to them that are caused by the bullwhip effect.Whenthey use this order data to do their demand forecasts, they just add further distortion to the demand picture and pass this distortion along in
the form of orders that they place with their suppliers.
Clearly, one way to counteract this distortion in demand forecasts isfor all companies in a supply chain to share a common set of demanddata from which to do their forecasting. The most accurate source of
this demand data is the supply chain member closest to the end use customer (if not the end use customers themselves). Sharing point-of-sales(POS) data among all the companies in a supply chain goes a long way
toward taming the bullwhip effect because it lets everyone respond toactual market demand instead of supply chain distortions.

Order Batching
Order batching occurs because companies place orders periodically for
amounts of product that will minimize their order processing and transportation costs. As discussed in the section on inventory control in
Chapter 2, companies tend to order in lot sizes determined by the EOQ(economic order quantity). Because of order batching, these orders varyfrom the level of actual demand and this variance is magnified as it moves
up the supply chain.
The way to address demand distortion caused by order batching is
to find ways to reduce the cost of order processing and transportation.This
will cause EOQ lot sizes to get smaller and orders to be placed more
frequently. The result will be a smoother flow of orders that distributors
and manufacturers will be able to handle more efficiently. Ordering costs
can be reduced by using electronic ordering technology. Transportation
costs can be reduced by using third party logistics suppliers (3PLs) to costeffectively pick up many small shipments from suppliers and deliver
small orders to many customers.

108

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

Product Rationing
This is the response that manufacturers take when they are faced withmore demand than they can meet. One common rationing approach is fora manufacturer to allocate the available supply of product based on thenumber of orders received. Thus if the available supply equals 70 percent of the orders received, the manufacturer will fill 70 percent of theamount of each order and back order the rest. This leads distributors
and retailers in the supply chain to raise their order quantities artificiallyin order to increase the amount of product that gets rationed to them.
This behavior greatly overstates product demand and it is called “shortage gaming.”
There are several ways to respond to this. Manufacturers can basetheir rationing decisions on the historical ordering patterns of a given
distributor or retailer and not on their present order sizes. This eliminates much of the motivation for the shortage gaming that otherwise
occurs. Manufacturers and distributors can also alert their customers inadvance if they see demand outstripping supply. This way productshortages will not take buyers by surprise and there will be less panic
buying.

Product Pricing
Product pricing causes product prices to fluctuate, resulting in distortionsof product demand. If special sales are offered and product prices are lowered, it will induce customers to buy more product or to buy productsooner than they otherwise would (forward buying). Then prices return tonormal levels and demand falls off. Instead of a smooth flow of products
through the supply chain, price fluctuations can create waves of demandand surges of product flow that are hard to handle efficiently.
Answers to this problem generally revolve around the concept of“everyday low prices.” If the end customers for a product believe that109

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

they will get a good price whenever they purchase the product, they
will make purchases based on real need and not other considerations.
This in turn makes demand easier to forecast and companies in the supply chain can respond more efficiently.

Performance Incentives

TE

AM
FL
Y

These are often different for different companies and individuals in a
supply chain. Each company can see its job as managing its position in
isolation from the rest of the supply chain.Within companies, individuals
can also see their job in isolation from the rest of the company. It is
common for companies to structure incentives that reward a company’ssales force on sales made each month or each quarter. Therefore as theend of a month or a quarter approaches, the sales force offers discounts
and takes other measures to move product in order to meet quotas. This
results in product for which there is no real demand being pushed into
the supply chain. It is also common for managers within a company to
be motivated by incentives that conflict with other company objectives.
For instance, a transportation manager may take actions that minimize
transportation costs at the expense of customer service or inventory
carrying costs.
Alignment of performance incentives with supply chain efficiencies
is a real challenge. It begins with the use of accurate activity based costing (ABC) data that can highlight the associated costs. Companies needto quantify the expenses incurred by forward buying due to month-end
or end-of-quarter sales incentives. Companies also need to identify theeffect of conflicting internal performance incentives. The next step is
to experiment with new incentive plans that support efficient supply
chain operation. This is a process that each company needs to workthrough in its own way.

110

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Eliyahu Goldratt wrote a book titled, The Goal, abouta factory manager’s quest to save his factory from being
closed down for lack of profitability. It chronicles the processthat the manager and his staff go through as they learn
how to save their factory. What they learn is how to apply
the principles of what Mr. Goldratt calls the “Theory ofConstraints.”
Mr. Goldratt and others have realized that the theory of constraints
applies equally well to the operation of a whole supply chain as tothe operation of a single factory within a supply chain. Lawrence
Fredendall and Ed Hill in their book, Basics of Supply Chain Management (Fredendall, Lawrence D., and Ed Hill, 2001, Basics of Supply
Chain Management, Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press), have put fortha clear explanation for how to apply the theory of constraints to synchronize the operations of a supply chain.
The theory of constraints provides a useful model to conceptualize
and manage the supply chain within a single company or across acollection of companies. The theory of constraints is based upon
the idea that all systems have at least one constraint and that it isbetter to manage constraints than to try to eliminate them. This isbecause when one part of a system ceases to be a constraint, a different constraint will occur in another part of the system. This isinevitable because the capacities of each part of a system are not
all the same. So instead of forever reacting to new constraints orbottlenecks as they appear, why not choose a small group of constraints and manage them deliberately and efficiently?
To apply this model, the first step is to define the goal and decide what
measurements will be used to measure progress toward the goal.
Mr. Goldratt’s definition of the goal for a manufacturing company
also works for a supply chain. The goal is defined as “Increase111

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
throughput while simultaneously reducing both inventory and operating expense.” Throughput is the rate at which sales to end customers occur.
Once a goal has been defined and there is agreement on how tomeasure progress toward the goal, it is possible to apply the five
focusing steps. These steps help clarify the situation being investigated and lead to the decisions necessary to reach the goal. The five
steps are:Identify the system’s bottlenecks or constraints—Trace out
the workflows and the paths that materials travel in a factory or a
supply chain. Find out where slowdowns and backups occur.
Decide how to exploit these bottlenecks—Figure out how to
maximize the operation of those activities that are bottlenecks.
The rate of throughput for the entire system is set by the rateof throughput achieved by the bottlenecks. Ensure the bottlenecks operate at maximum capacity by providing them withenough inventory so that they can continue to operate even if
there are occasional slowdowns elsewhere in the system.
Subordinate everything else to the above decision—Do not
try to maximize the operation of a non-bottleneck operation.
Additional productivity achieved by non-bottleneck operations
that exceeds the capacity of the bottlenecks to process will be
neutralized anyway by the slowdowns and backups caused at
the bottlenecks. Synchronize all system operations to the rates
that can be efficiently processed by the bottleneck operations.
Elevate the system’s bottlenecks—Add additional processing
capacity to the bottleneck activities. Since the rate of throughputof the entire system is set by the throughput of the bottlenecks,
improvements in the bottlenecks will increase the efficiency ofthe entire system and provide the best return on investment.
If, in a previous step, a bottleneck has been broken, go backto step 1—As the capacity of one system bottleneck is elevated,
it may cease to be a bottleneck. The bottleneck may transfer to112

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
another operation that could keep up before but now cannot
keep up with the new increase in capacity. Watch the entire
system to see where slowdowns and backups occur; they may
shift from one area to another. If this occurs, start again at
step 1.

The theory of constraints says that the throughput of the whole system
is set by the capacity of the bottlenecks. Exhibit 4.2 shows a sample
diagram of workflows and bottlenecks in a factory. This model of workflows in a factory can be applied to the workflows in a supply chain.
One constraint or bottleneck in every supply chain is the demandthat is generated by the market that the supply chain serves. In
many cases, market demand is the only constraint because supply of
products equals or exceeds demand. In cases where demand exceeds
supply there will be some other constraints elsewhere in the supply
chain. If we apply this model to a supply chain we get a powerful
method to organize and manage supply chain operations.
EXHIBIT 4.2

Flow of Work and Inventory
through a FactoryE

C

The bottlenecks or constraints in the flow of work through this factory
are operations C and E. The productivity set by these two operations
sets the pace for the ENTIRE factory. Productivity improvements inthe other operations will not result in any improvement in the productivity of the factory as a whole. Apply the five focusing steps tomanage this system and move it toward the goal defined for it.

113

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
A very effective response to the bullwhip effect is to manage theentire supply chain as a single entity and to synchronize it to the timing of actual market demand. Exhibit 4.3 illustrates this idea. Thiscan happen if the supply chain participants closest to the end use
customers share their sales numbers and their sales forecasts withthe other companies in the supply chain. Each company can thenmanage their actions based on the most accurate data about market demand.
Buffers in the supply chain are determined by the degree of uncertainty about future market demand and the service levels requiredby the market. The lower the uncertainty about demand, the smaller
the buffers can be and still maintain high service levels. Companies
can manage their buffers by using either productive capacity or
inventory, whichever is most cost effective for them.
Synchronized supply chains avoid the volatile waves of demand thatare generated by the bullwhip effect. And increased predictability
makes the productivity of each company easier to manage and the
supply chain as a whole becomes more efficient and profitable.
EXHIBIT 4.3

Flow of Inventory througha Synchronized Supply Chain

MarketDemand114

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
This model is called “drum-buffer-rope.” Market demand is the constraint on the system and it sets the drum beat or pace of the supply chain. Individual companies manage uncertainty in their stage ofthe supply chain by using a buffer of either inventory or productive
capacity. Buffers are kept low because uncertainty is minimized bysharing market demand data. This data is the rope that ties the participants together and allows them to synchronize their actions.

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting,and Replenishment
To facilitate the coordination that is needed in supply chains, an industry
group known as the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards (VICS)
group has set up a committee to investigate collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment issues (CPFR). This committee documents
best practices for CPFR and creates guidelines to follow for CPFR.
The CPFR process is divided into the three activities of planning,
forecasting, and replenishment.Within each activity there are several steps:
Collaborative Planning
Negotiate a front-end agreement that defines the responsibilitiesof the companies that will collaborate with each other•• Build a joint business plan that shows how the companies will
work together to meet demand

Collaborative Forecasting
Create sales forecasts for all the collaborating companies•• Identify any exceptions or differences between companies• Resolve the exceptions to provide a common sales forecast
115

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Collaborative Replenishment
Create order forecasts for all the collaborating companies•• Identify exceptions between companies• Resolve the exceptions to provide an efficient production anddelivery schedule• Generate actual orders to meet customer demand
C PFR in Action
For an example of how CPFR can work let’s return to the example ofNimble Company. In the section on product design in Chapter 2, we saw
how Nimble Company developed a home entertainment system that wasmuch simpler to manufacture than a competitor’s system. This simpler
design is in turn supported by a less complex supply chain that reduces
production costs and increases responsiveness to market demands. All of
this is central to the competitive success that Nimble Co. is enjoying.
Nimble Co. has collaboration agreements in place with its supply
chain partners and has an ongoing planning, forecasting, and replenishment process in place with these partners. Nimble Co. receives POS
data that show the actual sales of its systems in retail stores. From thesesame retailers, Nimble Co. receives regular updates of their sales forecasts
and their inventory levels of Nimble Co. home entertainment systems.
Nimble Co. uses this data to plan its production schedule and it also
shares this data with the component manufacturers who provide partsfor its home entertainment system. This way the component manufacturers can plan their own production schedules.
In looking at the sales data and forecasts, Nimble Co. sees that demand
for their product is growing faster than anticipated in their yearly planand they need to increase production. Nimble Co. revises its production schedule for the year and takes the new plan to its key component
suppliers to negotiate additional purchases of their components. It turns
116

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

out that one component supplier cannot quickly ramp up their production but a second supplier has a component that could fill the needwith just a slight modification to the design of one part of Nimble Co.’s
home entertainment system. Because all affected parties know what isgoing on and have enough lead time, the design changes are made andproduction schedules are increased to meet the rise in product demand
without any retailers running out of inventory.
The benefits illustrated in this scenario are numerous. To begin
with, the bullwhip effect is diminished because all companies in the
supply chain can see real time sales data and share sales forecasts. This
allows everyone to optimize their production schedules, inventory levels,and delivery schedules. Next there are the benefits associated with
Nimble Co. being able to quickly see a real rise in customer demandand coordinate with its suppliers to increase production schedules overpreviously planned levels. Even though one component supplier was
not able to accommodate Nimble Co.’s increased production schedule,
another supplier had a workable substitute. Changes were made to the
product design, production was increased, and no retailer lost sales revenue due to running out of inventory.
Those companies that can create collaborative supply chains will
have a significant competitive advantage. Collaboration is not easy to
implement and it will take time to become more common in business.
However, prominent companies are already beginning to lead the way.
Companies such as Wal-Mart, Dell, and Proctor & Gamble share pointof sales data with all the other companies in their respective supply
chains. The companies in these supply chains are also starting to shareinventory data with each other. Sharing this kind of information provides a basis for each company to make decisions about its own activities
that will yield better efficiencies and profits for itself and for the supply
chain as a whole.

117

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

How to Star t Supply Chain Collaboration
The best place to start in any effort to promote collaboration is to measure the bullwhip effect within your company. Over a period of timesuch as a quarter or a year, compare the volume and frequency of orders
you receive from your customers with the volume and frequency oforders you place with your suppliers. Plot them out on a graph so everyone can see the divergence between incoming customer orders and youroutgoing supplier orders.What is the extent of this divergence? Whereis your company located in the supply chain—is it toward the front of
the chain close to the end customer or is it further toward the back of thechain? Remember, the distortion caused by divergence of incoming
orders with outgoing orders increases as it moves back through the supply chain.
Many companies are not aware of the cost of the bullwhip effecton their supply chains. Traditionally, demand variability caused by the
bullwhip effect was taken as a given and companies worked on theirown to develop better capabilities to respond to fluctuations in demand.
It may instead be far more efficient for companies to work together toactually reduce the fluctuations in demand. A company can either try
to optimize its individual response to fluctuating demand or it can collaborate with other companies to reduce the fluctuations themselves.
Once you have established the magnitude of the bullwhip effectin your company, then get some estimates of the cost consequences indifferent areas of the company.What is the effect of this demand variability on production costs and scheduling? What is the effect on transportation costs and shipping and receiving costs? What inventory levels
are needed to maintain service levels in such a volatile situation andwhat is the associated carrying cost? What is the effect on product availability and order lead times—are sales lost because of lack of inventory?

118

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g yThese estimates show the cost to the company of dealing with demand
fluctuations. This is the basis upon which to discuss what it might beworth to fix the bullwhip effect.
EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Why do we need universal product code (UPC)
numbers? Because when each company uses only its own
part number for the same product as it moves through the
supply chain, what results is confusion and inefficiency.
Historically, companies have assigned their own part numbers to
the items that they buy and sell. This worked well enough in a slower time when supply chains were less complex and when products
themselves were less complex. Those were times we now refer toas the “good old days.” Increasing competition and demands from
customers to deliver products faster and cheaper shapes the world
we live in today. At the same time, the array and complexity of products in our economy has increased dramatically and that trend willclearly continue and even accelerate.
In order to be competitive and also profitable, companies need tofind ways to reduce or eliminate costs associated with routine andrepetitive business transactions. Those transactions often fall in theareas of purchasing, billing, accounts receivable, and accounts
payable. It is in these areas that the confusion caused by translating part numbers is most noticeable. Time spent translating one
part number to another part number for the same item adds very little, if any, value to the transaction. The errors that result from errors
in translation are the cause of many problems in invoicing and making payments. These problems consume people’s time and slow
down cash flow. All these expenses simply eat away at profit margins that are already thin enough.

119

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
In addition to the operating problems caused by using different partnumbers for the same item, another consequence is a lack of accuracy and clarity in sales history data. Part number translation errors
result in sales of some items being undercounted and sales of otheritems being overcounted. And sales of many items are simply
not counted at all or they are lumped under a miscellaneous partnumber such as the famous “9999” part number. Sales history
data is usually the basis for forecasting future demand and thisfuzziness in the data hampers efforts to improve demand forecasts,
production scheduling, and inventory management.

TE

AM
FL
Y

In order for companies to coordinate effectively, they need to havea single part number that stays with a part as it makes its way
through the supply chain. That number is the Universal ProductCode (UPC) number. Standards for the use of UPC numbers are set
by the Uniform Code Council (www.uc-council.org). Companies that
do business together need to be able to tag every item that they buy
and sell with a UPC number. They can still use their internal partnumbers for internal operations if they wish. But when they communicate with each other they need to use UPC numbers so as toeliminate the need to do part number translations. There are many
more valuable and profitable things that can be done with the timeand money that now goes into translating part numbers and dealing
with translation-related problems.
The Integrated Business Communications Alliance or IBCA (www.ibcaweb.org) presents a short and useful white paper on this subject. The paper is titled “A Starting Place for eCommerce” and it presents a pragmatic and simple way for companies to get started. The
white paper can be found on the IBCA web site and downloaded.

120

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g yInformation Systems that Suppor t the Supply Chain
Information technology can support internal operations and also collaboration between companies in a supply chain. Using high speed data
networks and databases, companies can share data to better manage thesupply chain as a whole and their own individual positions within the
supply chain. The effective use of this technology is a key aspect of acompany’s success.
All information systems are composed of technology that performs
three main functions: data capture and communication; data storage andretrieval; and data manipulation and reporting. Different information
systems have different combinations of capabilities in these functional
areas. The specific combination of capabilities is dependent on the
demands of the job that a system is designed to perform. Information
systems that are employed to support various aspects of supply chain
management are created from technologies that perform some combination of these functions.

Data Capture and Data Communications
The first functional area is composed of systems and technology thatcreate high speed data capture and communications networks. It is thistechnology that can overcome the lag times and lack of big picture
information that gives rise to the bullwhip effect.We will look at:
The Internet•• Broadband
• EDI
• XML

121

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The Internet
The Internet is the global data communications network that uses what
is known as Internet Protocol (IP) standards to move data from one
point to another. The Internet is the universal communications network that can connect with all computers and communication devices.
Once a device is hooked into the Internet it can communicate with anyother device that is also connected to the Internet regardless of the different internal data formats that they may use.
Before the Internet, companies had to put in expensive dedicatednetworks to connect themselves to other companies and move data
between their different computer systems. Now, with the Internet
already in place, different companies have a way to quickly and inexpensively connect their computer systems. If needed, extra data protection and privacy can be provided by using technology to create virtualprivate networks (VPNs) that utilize the Internet to create very securecommunication networks.

Broadband
Basically, this means any communications technology that offers highspeed (faster than a 56Kb dial-up modem) access to the Internet witha connection that is always on. This includes technologies such as coaxial
cable, digital subscriber line (DSL), metro Ethernet, fixed wireless, andsatellite. Broadband technology is spreading and as it does, it becomes
possible for companies in a supply chain to easily and inexpensively hookup with each other and exchange large volumes of data in real-time.
Most companies have connected themselves internally using local
area network (LAN) technology such as Ethernet that gives them plentyof internal communications capability. Many companies have connected
some or all of their different geographical locations using wide area
network (WAN) technology such as T1, T3, or frame relay.What now
122S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g yneeds to happen is high speed, relatively low cost connections between
separate companies and that is the role that broadband will play.

EDI
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a technology that was developed
to transmit common types of data between companies that do businesswith each other. It was first deployed in the 1980s by large companies
in the manufacturing, automobile, and transportation industries. It was
built to automate back office transactions such as the sending andreceiving of purchase orders (known as an “850” transaction), invoices(an “810”), advance shipment notices (an “856”), and backorder status(an “855”) to name just a few. It originally was built to run on big,
mainframe computers using value added networks (VANs) to connect
with other trading partners. That technology was expensive.
Many companies have large existing investments in EDI systems
and find that it is very cost effective to continue to use these systems tocommunicate with other businesses. Standard EDI data sets have been
defined for a large number of business transactions. Companies can decide
which data sets they will use and which parts of each data set they willuse. EDI systems can now run on any type of computer from mainframe to PC and it can use the Internet for data communications as wellas VANs. Costs for EDI technology have come down considerably.

XML
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a technology that is being
developed to transmit data in flexible formats between computers andbetween computers and humans. Where EDI uses rigid, pre-defined
data sets to send data back and forth, XML is extensible and once certain
standards have been agreed upon, XML can also be used to communicate a wide range of different kinds of data and related processing

123

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

instructions between different computer systems. XML can also be used
to communicate between computers and humans because it can driveuser interfaces such as web browsers and respond to human input.
Unlike EDI, the exact data transactions and processing sequences do
not have to be previously defined when using XML.
There are many evolving XML standards in different industries but
as yet none of these standards has been widely adopted. The industry
that has made the most progress in adopting XML standards is the electronics industry. They are beginning to implement the RosettaNet
XML standards (www.rosettanet.org).
In the near term, XML and EDI are merging into hybrid systems
that are evolving to meet the needs of companies in different supply
chains. It is not cost effective for companies with existing EDI systems thatare working well enough to replace them with newer XML systems all at
once. So XML extensions are being grafted onto EDI systems. Software
is available to quickly translate EDI data to XML and then back to EDI.
Service providers are now offering Internet-based EDI to smaller suppliers who do business with large EDI-using customers.
In the longer term, EDI will be wholly consumed by XML as
XML standards are agreed upon and start to spread. As these standards
spread they will enable very flexible communications between companies
in a supply chain. XML will allow communications that are more spontaneous and free form, like any human language. This kind of communication will drive a network of computers and people interacting withother computers and other people. The purpose of this network will be
to coordinate supply operations on a daily basis.

Data Storage and Retrieval
The second functional area of an information system is composed oftechnology that stores and retrieves data. This activity is performed by124

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g ydatabase technology. A database is an organized grouping of data that isstored in an electronic format. The most common type of database uses
what is called “relational database” technology. Relational databases store
related groups of data in individual tables and provide for retrieval of datawith the use of a standard language called structured query language(SQL).
A database is a model of the business processes for which it collects
and stores data. The model is defined by the level of detail in the datait collects. The design of every database has to strike a balance between
highly aggregate data at one extreme and highly detailed data at theother extreme. This balance is arrived at by weighing the needs andbudget of a business against the increasing cost associated with more
and more detailed data. The balance is reflected in what is called thedata model of the database.
As events occur in a business process, there are database transactions.
The data model of the database determines which transactions can berecorded since the database cannot record transactions that are either moredetailed or more aggregated than provided for in the data model. Thesetransactions can be recorded as soon as they happen and that is called “realtime” updating or they may be captured and recorded in batches that happen on a periodic basis and that is called “batch” updating.
A database also provides for the different data retrieval needs of thepeople who use it. People doing different jobs will want different combinations of data from the same database. These different combinations
are called “views.” Views can be created and made available to people
who need them to do their jobs. For instance, consider a database that
contains sales history for a range of different products to a range of different customers. A customer view of this data might show a customer
the different products and quantities they purchased over a period oftime and show detail of the purchases at each customer location. A

125

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

manufacturer view might show all the customers who bought theirgroup of products over a period of time and show detail for the products that each customer bought.

Data Manipulation and Repor tingDifferent supply chain systems are created by combining processing
logic to manipulate and display data with the technology required tocapture, communicate, store, and retrieve data. The way that a systemmanipulates and displays the data that flows through it is determined by
the specific business operations that the system is designed to support.
Information systems contain the processing logic needed by the business operations they support. Chopra and Meindl define several kindsof systems that support supply chain operations:Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)•• Procurement Systems• Advanced Planning and Scheduling• Transportation Planning Systems• Demand Planning• Customer Relation Management (CRM) and Sales Force
Automation (SFA)• Supply Chain Management (SCM)• Inventory Management Systems• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)• Transportation Scheduling Systems• Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)Enterprise Resource PlanningEnterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems gather data from acrossmultiple functions in a company. ERP systems monitor orders, production schedules, raw material purchases, and finished goods inventory.
126

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

They support a process-oriented view of business that cuts across different functional departments. For instance, an ERP system can viewthe entire order fulfillment process and track an order from the procurement of material to fill the order to delivery of the finished product tothe customer.
ERP systems come in modules that can be installed on their own
or in combination with other modules. There are usually modules forfinance, procurement, manufacturing, order fulfillment, human resources,
and logistics. The focus of these modules is primarily on carrying out
and monitoring daily transactions. ERP systems often lack the analyticalcapabilities needed to optimize the efficiency of these transactions.

Procurement Systems
Procurement systems focus on the procurement activities that takeplace between a company and its suppliers. The purpose of these systems is to streamline the procurement process and make it more efficient. Such systems typically replace supplier catalogs with a productdatabase that contains all the needed information about products thecompany buys. They also keep track of part numbers, prices, purchasing histories, and supplier performance.
Procurement systems allow people to compare the price and performance capabilities of different suppliers. This way the best suppliers
are identified so that relationships can be established with these suppliers
and prices negotiated. The routine transactions that occur in the purchasing process can then be largely automated.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling
Advanced Planning and Scheduling, also known as APS systems, are highly
analytical applications whose purpose is to assess plant capacity, material
availability, and customer demand. These systems then produce schedules
for what to make in which plant and at what time. APS systems base
127

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

their calculations on the input of transaction level data that is extracted
from ERP or legacy transaction processing systems. They then use linear
programming techniques and other sophisticated algorithms to create
their recommended schedules.

Transportation Planning Systems
Transportation Planning Systems are systems that calculate what quantity of materials should be brought to what locations at what times. The
systems enable people to compare different modes of transportation,different routes, and different carriers. Transportation plans are thencreated using these systems. The software for these systems is sold bysystem vendors. Other providers known as content vendors provide thedata that is needed by these systems, such as mileage, fuel costs, andshipping tariffs.

Demand Planning
These systems use special techniques and algorithms to help a company
forecast their demand. These systems take historical sales data and information about planned promotions and other events that can affect customer demand, such as seasonality and market trends. They use this data
to create models that help predict future sales.
Another feature that is often associated with demand planning systems is revenue management. This feature lets a company experimentwith different price mixes for its different products in light of the predicted demand. The idea is to find a mix of products and prices thatmaximizes total revenue to the company. Companies in the travelindustry such as airlines, rental car agencies, and hotels are already using
revenue management techniques. These techniques will spread to otherindustries.

128

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

Customer Relation Management
and Sales Force Automation
Systems of this type automate many of the tasks related to servicing
existing customers and finding new customers. Customer Relation
Management (CRM) systems track buying patterns and histories ofcustomers. They consolidate a company’s customer-related data in a place
where it is quickly accessible to customer service and sales people who
use the data to better respond to customer requests.
Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems allow a company to better
coordinate and monitor the activities of its sales force. These systems
automate many of the tasks related to scheduling sales calls and follow-up
visits and preparing quotes and proposals for customers and prospects.

Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems are suites of different supply
chain applications, such as those described here that are tightly integrated
with each other. An SCM system could be an integrated suite that contains advanced planning and scheduling, transportation planning, demandplanning, and inventory planning applications. SCM systems rely on
ERP or relevant legacy systems to provide them with the data to support
the analysis and planning that they do. These systems have the analyticalcapabilities to support strategic level decision making.

Inventory Management Systems
These systems support the activities described in Chapter 2 that are partof inventory management such as tracking historical demand patterns
for products, monitoring inventory levels for different products, and calculating economic order quantities and the levels of safety inventory
that should be held for each product. These systems are used to find theright balance for a company between the cost of carrying inventory
129

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

and the cost of running out of inventory and losing sales revenue
because of that.

Manufacturing Execution Systems
The focus is on carrying out the production activities in a factory. Thiskind of system is less analytical than an APS. It produces short-term
production schedules and allocates raw materials and production resources
within a single manufacturing plant. A Manufacturing Execution System(MES) is similar in its operational focus to an ERP system and frequently
MES software is produced by ERP software vendors.

Transportation Scheduling Systems

AM
FL
Y

Systems in this category are similar to ERP and MES applications inthat they are less analytical and more focused on daily operational issues.
A transportation scheduling system produces short-term transportationand delivery schedules that are used by a company.

TE

Warehouse Management Systems

These systems support daily warehouse operations. They provide capabilities to efficiently run the ongoing operations of a warehouse. Thesesystems keep track of inventory levels and stocking locations within awarehouse and they support the actions needed to pick, pack, and ship
product to fill customer orders.

Assessing Technology and System Needs
When evaluating different systems that can be used to support yoursupply chain it is important to keep in mind your goal—the reason forusing any of these systems. Customers desire good service and goodprices. That is what guides them when they select companies to dobusiness with. Technology is a means for a company to be of service toits customers. Companies that keep this in mind do well.
130

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

In business, technology is only important insofar as it enables acompany or an entire supply chain to deliver valuable products and services to its customers profitably. Do not let the complexity or the detailsof any technology or system be a distraction from this basic truth.
Technology can be impressive but it is not an end in itself.
Success in supply chain management comes from delivering the highest levels of service at the lowest cost. Technology is expensive and canquickly add a lot of cost to a business. It is a far better thing to use simple
technology well than to use sophisticated technology in a clumsy manner.
EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Starting in the late 1990s supply chain service
providers have sprung up to handle the needs of many
specific markets. There has been a high turnover in thesecompanies as the markets have evolved. Those companies
that have survived are now focused on providing specificservices to well-defined groups of customers.
Tibersoft (www.Tibersoft.com) provides order management services
and supply chain monitoring and analysis systems to companies in
the food and the maintenance supplies industries. Christopher Martinis the Vice Chairman and founder of Tibersoft. “Order management is
simple, but difficult to execute well. The supply chains we serve arevery high velocity and mistakes are costly. Order management systems are the pinion gears used to keep everything moving smoothly.”With the Internet, order management systems now span multiple
companies in a supply chain. Their primary function is to present
customers with the information they need to place orders and thencommunicate the orders to the companies that will fulfil them. Thisextended supply chain requires tight integration between the ordermanagement system and various internal systems in companies

131ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
that are part of the supply chain. Chris explained, “You are always
updating data about product, price, and promotion. Strong integration with back office systems is crucial. Our systems are extensionsof the buyers’ and the sellers’ back office systems linked together
over the Internet.
“Once you’ve taken the order there is a lot of tracking of that orderto let people know about things like order status, backorders andsubstitutions, advance ship notices. The velocity in supply chains isdefinitely increasing and people want increasing control over their
supply chains because of this.”
The last few years have provided more understanding about the kindof control that people want. Chris continued, “There was a movementa couple of years ago where companies tried to create automatedresponses to supply chain events. That stopped because people
didn’t want technology to run the supply chain, they want technology
to spot exceptions and bring them to their attention. This requires
the order management system to get a continuous data feed fromother systems. The data needed cannot be provided by manual input.
“People who are successful with Internet technology have learned
that improving business is a series of incremental steps. They aretotally focused on solving a specific problem. Supply chain service
providers that focus on specific processes within well-defined vertical markets are the ones who will succeed. You have to go deep into
the business processes of your customers to really advance thestate of the art. Companies that try to do many functions across a
range of markets just skim the surface and cannot provide enoughvalue to deliver a compelling ROI.”
When discussing the growth strategy of the company, Chris referred
to a lesson he learned from a mentor, Max Hopper, “Scope drives
scale and scale drives scope.” He continued, “What he means isthat we need to start with the scope of our existing products and go
for as much scale as possible. Get as much business as we can.
Customers will then tell you what they want in the next version—and132

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g y

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
we go again to build up the scale. We have come to believe that if
a customer feels strongly enough that they will pay for a new feature, only then is it worth building that feature. Purely speculative
development is a pernicious habit. Frankly, we don’t waste a lot oftime trying to revolutionize an industry. We work with individual customers to give them what they need to achieve their individual ROIs.
The art is combining these solutions into the same code base.”
Chris summed up what the last several years have taught them, “We
don’t want to rebuild systems that are already out there. We arehere to connect these different systems and provide the data acrossthe extended supply chain. Tibersoft does this by building private,
point-to-point connections between companies using common data
protocols. And those connections need to remain just that—private.
Many dot com companies got themselves in trouble taking the data
generated between their customers and using it to their economic
benefit. “Enable, don’t participate: that rule we don’t break.”E -Business and Supply Chain Integration
The widespread availability and use of the Internet offers companies
opportunities that did not exist before. These opportunities are madepossible because it is now so easy and relatively inexpensive for companies
to connect to the Internet. Once connected, companies can send data to
and receive data from other companies that they do business with regardless of the particular computers or software that individual companies
may be using to run their internal operations. Based on this data sharing,
opportunities exist to achieve tremendous supply chain efficiencies andsignificant increases in customer service and responsiveness. These are
the results of better supply chain integration.
E-business encompasses the evolving set of principles and practices
that companies are employing to gain the benefits inherent in better

133

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

supply chain integration. In the words of Professors Hau Lee andSeungjin Whang of Stanford University, e-business specifically refers to,“the planning and execution of the front-end and back-end operations
in a supply chain using the Internet.”
In a white paper titled “E-Business and Supply Chain Integration”
published by the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum(www.stanford.edu/group/scforum/) professors Lee and Whang lay out
four key dimensions of the impact of e-business on supply chain integration. These four dimensions create a sequence of greater and greater
integration and coordination among supply chain participants. Thissequence culminates in the creation of whole new ways to conductbusiness. The four dimensions are:
1. Information integration—Is the ability to share relevant informa-tion among companies in a supply chain. This includes data suchas: sales history and demand forecasts; inventory status; production
schedules; production capacities; sales promotions; and transportation schedules. This data should be available to the people
who need it in a real-time, on-line format via the Internet or
private network.
2. Planning synchronization—Refers to the joint participation ofcompanies in a supply chain in the demand forecasting and inventory replenishment scheduling. It also includes the collaborative
design, development, and bringing to market of new products.
3. Workflow coordination—Is the next step after planning synchroniza-tion. It is the streamlining and automation of ongoing businessactivities across companies in a given supply chain. This includes
activities such as purchasing and product design.
4. New business models—Can emerge as a result of supply chain

integration made possible by the Internet. Roles and responsibilities
134

S u p p l y C h a i n C o o r d i n a t i o n a n d U s e o f Te c h n o l o g yof companies in a supply chain can be redesigned so that eachcompany can truly concentrate on the activities that are its corecompetencies. Non-core activities can be outsourced to other companies. New capabilities and efficiencies will become possible.

E xperience of the Last Several Years
Several waves of e-business development have occurred since the late
1990s. The first wave of developments by entrepreneurial start-up companies typically focused on using Internet-based exchanges to improve
purchasing efficiencies and drive down the cost of products throughthe use of online bid/auction techniques. Then industry news, statistics,
and reference material were added to many of these exchanges and they
were referred to as industry portals. Most of these developments havenot lived up to expectations.
The next wave of developments continued to focus on purchasing
efficiencies but this time the systems were developed by the purchasing
companies themselves instead of by third party entrepreneurs. Oftenthese developments have taken the form of a consortium of big companies in an industry banding together to finance the start up of anInternet-based purchasing platform that will support the whole rangeof their purchasing functions. Examples of this are Covisint in the automobile industry, ForestExpress in the forest products industry, and Aero
Exchange International in the airline industry. These developments areyielding efficiencies in procurement operations.
The most recent wave of developments are now looking at how toachieve efficiencies in a broad range of supply chain operations such as
product design, demand forecasting, inventory management, and customer
service. The key to realizing these efficiencies is information sharing
between companies in a supply chain. Many current e-business developments are working on methods and standards to share information across135

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

multiple companies. Information sharing is the foundation and then crosscompany coordination is what will deliver the desired efficiencies. Once
information integration is in place, the next three dimensions: planning
synchronization; workflow coordination; and new business models canevolve much more rapidly. E-business development has only just begun.

Chapter Summary
One of the most common dynamics in supply chains is a phenomenathat has been dubbed “the bullwhip effect.” What happens is that smallchanges in product demand by the consumer at the front of the supply
chain translate into wider and wider swings in demand as experienced
by companies further back in the supply chain. Companies at different
stages in the supply chain come to have very different pictures of market
demand and the result is a breakdown in supply chain coordination.
Companies behave in ways that at first create product shortages and thenlead to an excess supply of product.
Many companies are not aware of the cost of the bullwhip effecton their supply chains. Traditionally, demand variability caused by the
bullwhip effect was taken as a given and companies worked on theirown to develop better capabilities to respond to fluctuations in demand.
It may instead be far more efficient for companies to work together toactually reduce the fluctuations in demand. A company can either try to
optimize its individual response to fluctuating demand or it can collaborate with other companies to reduce the fluctuations themselves.
The use of supporting technology is necessary for effective supply
chain operations. All information systems are composed of technologythat performs three main functions: data capture and communication;
data storage and retrieval; and data manipulation and reporting. Different
supply chain information systems have different combinations of capabilities in these functional areas.
136

CHAPTER 5

Measuring Performance:
Supply Chain Metrics
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Employ a useful model for assessing markets and the supply
chains that support them

• Define a concise set of metrics for measuring the performance of a company’s supply chain operations• Discuss ways to collect and display supply chain performance data

• Use performance data to spotlight problems and opportunities
upply chains are fluid and are continuously adjusting to changes insupply and demand for the products they handle. To get the performance desired from supply chains requires a company to monitor andcontrol its operations on a daily basis. This chapter introduces four performance categories that each supply chain participant should measure. Itthen discusses the performance metrics that can be used in each of these
performance categories. The chapter also explores some of the technologythat can be used to collect, store, and present performance data.

S

A Useful Model of Markets and Their Supply Chains
A supply chain exists to support the market that it serves. To identify theperformance that a supply chain should deliver, we need to evaluate the137

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

market being served. In support of this analysis we will employ a simple
model. The model allows us to categorize a market and identify therequirements and opportunities that each kind of market presents to its
supply chains. Reality is, of course, more subtle and more complex than
any model can represent but this model can point you in the right
direction and guide you through an investigation of the markets yourcompany serves.
Let us start by defining a market using its two most basic components—
supply and demand. A market is characterized by its combination of supply and demand. This model defines four basic kinds of markets, ormarket quadrants. In the first quadrant is a market where both supply
and demand for its products are low and unpredictable. Let’s call this adeveloping market. In the second quadrant is a market where supply is
low and demand is high. This is a growth market. The third quadrant
contains a market where both supply and demand are high. There is a
lot of predictability in this market so call this a steady market. In the fourth
quadrant, this kind of market supply is higher than demand. This is amature market.
In a developing market, both supply and demand are low and also
uncertain. These are usually new markets that are just emerging. These
markets are created by new technology becoming available or by socialand economic trends that cause a group of customers to perceive somenew set of needs. Opportunities in a developing market are in the areasof partnering with other players in the supply chain to gather intelligence about what the market wants. Cost of sales is high in this market
and inventories are low.
Growth markets are markets where demand is higher than supply
and so supply is often uncertain. If a developing market solidifies andbuilds up momentum, it can suddenly take off and for a time there is asurge in demand that suppliers cannot keep up with. Opportunities in a138

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

growth market are in providing a high level of customer service as measured by order fill rates and on-time deliveries. Customers in a market likethis value a reliable source of supply and will pay premium prices forreliability. Cost of sales should be low since customers are easy to findand inventories can be higher because they are increasing in value.
In a steady market both supply and demand are high and thus relatively predictable. This is an established market where market forces
have been at work for a while and have pretty well balanced supply anddemand. Opportunities here lie in fine tuning and optimizing internal
company operations. Companies should focus on minimizing inventory and cost of sales while maintaining high levels of customer service.
In a mature market, supply has overtaken demand and excess supply
capacity exists. Demand is reasonably stable or slowly falling but becauseof the fierce competition due to oversupply, demand seems uncertain fromthe point of view of any one supplier in this market. Opportunities inthis market are in the area of flexibility as measured by an ability torespond quickly to changes in product demand while maintaining highlevels of customer service. Customers in a market like this value theconvenience of “one stop shopping” where they can purchase a wide
variety of related products at low prices. Inventories should be minimized and the cost of sales are somewhat higher due to the expense of
attracting customers in a crowded market.

Market Per formance Categories
Markets in each quadrant have their own mix of opportunities for the
supply chains that support them. A different mix of performance characteristics is required of companies in the supply chains of each kind of
market. In order to thrive, the companies in a supply chain must be able
to work together to exploit the opportunities available in their markets.
The highest profits go to the companies that can successfully respond to139

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

MATURESTEADYSupply exceeds demand

Established market, supply anddemand are balanced
Opportunities lie in each company fine tuning and optimizing
their internal operations to get
maximum efficiency and best
overall supply chain profitability.

DEVELOPINGGROWTH

New market and new products,
supply and demand are low

Demand exceeds supply

AM
FL
Y

Opportunities lie in coordinatingwith supply chain partners to provide a wide range of products tothe market and accommodate
wide fluctuations in productdemand while maintaining highlevels of customer service.

Opportunities lie in partneringwith other companies in the
supply chain to gather intelligence about what the market
wants and build and deliverproducts that will be attractive
to the market.

TE

S U P P LY

Each Market Quadrant Presents Different Opportunities

Opportunities lie in building market share and recognition
through working with supply
chain partners to provide highlevels of customer service asmeasured by order fill rate andon-time delivery.

D E M A N D
What are the markets your company serves? What quadrants arethey in? How can your company respond to the opportunities inthese markets?

the opportunities their markets offer. Companies that are unable torespond to opportunities as effectively will fall behind.
In Chapter 1 we introduced two characteristics that describe supply
chain performance—responsiveness and efficiency. We all intuitively
know what these two characteristics imply, but now we need to define
140Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

them in more precise terms so that they can be measured objectively.
We will use four measurement categories:
1. Customer Service
2. Internal Efficiency
3. Demand Flexibility
4. Product Development

Customer Service
Customer service measures the ability of the supply chain to meet the
expectations of its customers. Depending on the type of market being
served, the customers in that market will have different expectations forcustomer service. Customers in some markets both expect and will pay
for high levels of product availability and quick delivery of small purchase quantities. Customers in other markets will accept longer waits
for products and will purchase in large quantities.Whatever the market
being served, the supply chain must meet the customer service expectations of the people in that market.

Internal Efficiency
Internal efficiency refers to the ability of a company or a supply chain
to operate in such a way as to generate an appropriate level of profitability. As with customer service, market conditions vary and what is
an appropriate level of profit varies from one market to another. In arisky developing market the profit margins need to be higher in orderto justify the investment of time and money. In a mature market where
there is little uncertainty or risk, profit margins can be somewhat lower.
These markets offer the opportunity to do large volumes of businessand to make up in gross profit what is given up in gross margin.

141

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Demand Flexibility
This category measures the ability to respond to uncertainty in levels of
product demand. It shows how much of an increase over current levelsof demand can be handled by a company or a supply chain. It also
includes the ability to respond to uncertainty in the range of productsthat may be demanded. This ability is often needed in mature markets.

Product Development
This encompasses a company and a supply chain’s ability to continue to
evolve along with the markets it serves. It measures the ability to develop
and deliver new products in a timely manner. This ability is necessary
when serving developing markets.

A Framework for Per formance Measurement
There are other demands that real-world markets place on their supply
chains, however, by using these four performance categories we can createa useful framework. This framework describes the mix of performancerequired from companies and supply chains that serve the four different
market quadrants.When a company identifies the markets it serves it canthen define the performance mix required by those markets in order tobest respond to the opportunities they provide.
Markets in the first quadrant, developing markets, require their supply
chains to excel in product development and customer service. Growthmarkets require very high levels of customer service particularly as measured by order fill rates and on-time delivery. Steady markets require internal efficiency as well as an even broader scope of customer service. Mature
markets require all the internal efficiency and customer service called forby steady markets. They also require the highest levels of demand flexibility.
The most profitable companies and supply chains are those thatdeliver the performance called for by their markets. These organizations
142

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

are the most profitable because they are the ones most able to respondeffectively to the opportunities offered by their markets. Companies
should collect and track a handful of performance measures that coverthese four areas. This will give them valuable information about how
well they are responding to their markets.
The metrics that measure performance in the four areas are applicable
to individual companies and also to entire supply chains. It is harder togather these metrics for entire supply chains because companies are
reluctant to share data that may be used against them by their competitors
or by their customers or suppliers. There are issues of trust and incentive
TIPS & TECHNIQUESS U P P LY

Market Quadrants Require a Different Mix of Performance
MATURESTEADY• Customer Service• Internal Efficiency• Demand Flexibility• Customer Service• Internal Efficiency

DEVELOPINGGROWTH• Customer Service• Product Development• Customer Service

D E M A N D
Does your company excel in the performance categories that relate
to the markets you serve? Profit opportunities lie in being a leader
in the mix of performance categories that your markets call for.

143

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

to work out before these metrics can readily be collected for an entire
supply chain. Nonetheless, when these issues are worked out, these
metrics will help to guide the behavior of the entire supply chain andshould benefit all the participants in that chain over the long term.

Customer Service Metrics
In the words of Warren Hausman, a professor at Stanford University,“service relates to the ability to anticipate, capture and fulfill customer
demand with personalized products and on-time delivery” (Hausman,
Warren H., 2000, “Supply Chain Performance Metrics,” Management
Science & Engineering Department, Stanford University). The reason
that any company exists is to be of service to its customers. The reason
that any supply chain exists is to serve the market it is attached to. These
measures indicate how well a company serves its customers and how
well a supply chain supports its market.
There are two sets of customer service metrics depending on whether
the company or supply chain is in a build to stock (BTS) or build toorder (BTO) situation. Popular metrics for a build to stock situation are:Complete Order Fill Rate and Order Line Item Fill Rate•
• On-Time Delivery Rate
• Value of Total Backorders and Number of Backorders• Frequency and Duration of Backorders• Line Item Return Rate

Popular metrics for a build to order situation are:
Quoted Customer Response Time and On-Time
Completion Rate•

• On-Time Delivery Rate
• Value of Late Orders and Number of Late Orders• Frequency and Duration of Late Orders• Number of Warranty Returns and Repairs
144

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

Build to Stock
A build to stock or BTS situation is one where common commodity
products are supplied to a large market or customer base. These areproducts such as office supplies, cleaning supplies, building supplies, andso on. Customers expect to get these products right away any time theyneed them. Supply chains for these products must meet this demand bystocking them in inventory so they are always available.
In a BTS environment a customer wants their complete order to be
filled immediately. This may be expensive to provide if customer orders
contain a wide range and number of items. It is costly for companies tocarry all those items in stock so they may have backup plans to provide
expedited delivery of items not in stock or substitution of upgraded
items for those not in stock. The order fill rate measures the percentage
of total orders where all items on the order are filled immediately fromstock. The line item fill rate is the percentage of total line items on allorders that are filled immediately from stock. Used together, these two
measures track customer service from two important perspectives.

Build to Order
A build to order or BTO situation is one where a customized productis ordered by a customer. This is any situation where a product is built
based on a specific customer order and is configured to meet a unique
set of requirements defined by the customer. An example of this is theway Boeing builds airplanes for specific customers and their requirements or the way Dell Computer assembles PCs to fit individual customer orders and specifications.
In a BTO environment it is important to track both the quoted
customer response time and the on-time completion rate. It is easier for
a company to achieve a high on-time completion rate if it quotes
longer customer response times. The question is whether the customer
145

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

really wants a short response time or will accept a longer response time.
The quoted response time needs to be aligned with the company’s value
proposition and competitive strategy.

I nternal Ef ficiency Metrics
Internal efficiency refers to the ability of a company or a supply chain
to use their assets as profitably as possible. Assets include anything of
tangible value such as plant, equipment, inventory, and cash. Some popular measures of internal efficiency are:Inventory value•• Inventory turns• Return on sales• Cash-to-cash cycle timeInventory Value
This should be measured both at a point in time and also as an averageover time. The major asset involved in a supply chain is the inventory
contained throughout the length of the chain. Supply chains and thecompanies that make them up are always looking for ways to reduceinventory while still delivering high levels of customer service. Thismeans trying to match inventory availability (supply) with sales (demand)and not have excess inventory left over. The only time a company
would want to let inventory exceed sales is in a growth market wherethe value of the inventory will increase. However, markets change andas a rule it is best to avoid excess inventory.

Inventory Turns
This is a way to measure the profitability of inventory by tracking the
speed with which it is sold or turned over during the course of a year.This
measure is often referred to as T & E or “turn and earn.” It is calculatedby the equation:
146

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

Turns = Annual Cost of Sales / Annual Average Inventory Value

Generally, the higher the turn rate the better, although some lower
turning inventory needs to be available in order to meet customer service and demand flexibility.

Return on Sales
Return on sales is a broad measure of how well an operation is being
run. It measures how well fixed and variables costs are managed and also
the gross profit generated on sales:
Return on Sales = Earnings before Interest & Tax / Sales

Again, as a rule, the higher the return on sales the better. There aretimes though when a company may deliberately reduce this number inorder to gain or defend market share or to incur expenses that are necessary to achieve some other business objective.

Cash-to-Cash Cycle Time
This is the time it takes from when a company pays its suppliers formaterials to when it gets paid by its customers. This time can be estimatedwith the following formula:Cash-to-Cash Cycle Time = Inventory Days of Supply +Days Sales Outstanding – Average Payment Period on Purchases

The shorter this cycle time the better. A company can often make more
improvements in their accounts payable and receivable areas than they
can in their inventory levels. Accounts receivable may be large due tolate payments caused by billing errors or selling to customers who arebad credit risks. These are things a company can manage as well as
inventory.

147

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Demand Flexibility Metrics
Demand flexibility describes a company’s ability to be responsive to
new demands in the quantity and range of products and to act quickly.
A company or supply chain needs capabilities in this area in order tocope with uncertainty in the markets they serve. Some measures offlexibility are:Activity Cycle Time•• Upside Flexibility• Outside Flexibility

Activity Cycle Time
The cycle time measures the amount of time it takes to perform a supply
chain activity such as order fulfillment, product design, product assembly,
or any other activity that supports the supply chain. This cycle time canbe measured within an individual company or across an entire supply
chain. Order fulfillment within a single company may be fast but thatcompany may only be filling an order from another company in the
supply chain. What is important is the cycle time for order fulfillment
to the ultimate end use customer that the entire supply chain is there
to serve.

Upside Flexibility
It is the ability of a company or supply chain to respond quickly toadditional order volume for the products they carry. Normal order volume may be 100 units per week for a product. Can an order be accommodated that is 25 percent greater one week or will the extra productdemand wind up as a backorder? Upside flexibility can be measured as
the percentage increase over the expected demand for a product thatcan be accommodated.

148

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Performance Measures in
the Four Categories
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Build to Stock (BTS)

Build to Order (BTO)•• On-time delivery rateof total backorders &• Valuenumber of backorders
and duration of• Frequency
backorders• Line item return rate

customer response• Quoted
time & on-time completion rate
• On-time delivery rateof late orders & number• Valueof late orders
and duration of late
• Frequency
ordersof warranty returns• Numberand repairs

Complete order fill rate &order line item fill rate

INTERNAL EFFICIENCY• Inventory value• Inventory turns• Return on sales• Cash-to-cash cycle time
DEMAND FLEXIBILITY• Activity cycle times• Upside flexibility• Outside flexibility
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT• Percent of total sales from products introduced in last 12 months• Percent of total SKUs that were introduced in last 12 months• Cycle time for new product development and delivery
Companies need to track some or all of these metrics to get an accurate picture of their capabilities in the four performance categories.

149

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Outside Flexibility
This is the ability to quickly provide the customer with additional
products outside the bundle of products normally provided. As markets
mature and technologies blend, products that were once considered outside of the range of a company’s offerings can become a logical extensionof its offerings. There is danger in trying to provide customers with a
new and unrelated set of products that has little in common with theexisting product bundle. However, there is opportunity to acquire newcustomers and sell more to existing customers when outside flexibility
is managed skillfully.

AM
FL
Y

Product Development Metrics

TE

Product development measures a company or a supply chain’s ability todesign, build, and deliver new products to serve their markets as thosemarkets evolve over time. Technical innovations, social change, and economic developments cause a market to change over time. Measurementsin this performance category are often overlooked, but companies doso at their own peril. A supply chain must keep pace with the market
it serves or it will be replaced. The ability to keep pace with an evolving
market can be measured by metrics such as:
Percentage of total products sold that were introduced in thelast year•• Percentage of total sales from products introduced in the last year
• Cycle time to develop and deliver a new product
O perations that Enable Supply Chain Per formance
In order for an organization to meet the performance requirements ofthe markets it serves it must look to measure and improve its capabilities
in the four categories of supply chain operations:150

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

1. Plan
2. Source
3. Make
4. Deliver

The efficiency with which these activities are carried out will ultimately determine how well a company performs as measured by things
such as order and line item fill rate, on-time delivery, inventory turns,

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Measuring performance is a process of selecting
a handful of meaningful indicators and using them to trackcompany performance. Often the indicators are financial
performance measurements.
Bob Mitchum is the CFO of a cooperative of distribution companies thatserves customers across North America. This organization is called
Network Services (www.nsconline.com). Bob is the one who keeps
tabs on the performance of the organization as a whole and also of
the member companies individually. All member companies need tomeet several performance targets in order to remain members in goodstanding. This ensures that they are able to deliver the products andservices demanded by Network Services’ national account customers.
Bob watches four financial indicators of each member company’s
internal efficiency. Two of them measure the company’s operating
efficiency and two of them measure its resiliency—its ability to withstand tough times and respond to opportunities. “Over a 2-to-3 year
period these ratios give a pretty clear picture of what’s going on witha company. Network requires its members to meet or exceed thebenchmark measures in these two areas as set by our industry
trade association [National Paper Trade Association].” These financial
indicators are:151

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
Operating Efficiency
on Sales—Pretax earnings (EBIT) as a percentage• ofReturnsales
on Shareholder Equity—EBIT as a percentage of• Returnshareholder equity
Resiliency• Debt to Net Worth—Total debt divided by net worth• Interest Coverage—EBIT divided by interest expense
Return on sales is an indicator of how well a business is being run.
“It tells you if a company is operating within its means. If this number is going up year to year that means the company is getting more
efficient. If the number is going down or becomes negative, thattells you the company is spending more than it is bringing in.”
Return on shareholder equity shows how efficiently the company’s
money is being spent, “the higher this number the better.” If a company cannot produce a return on equity that is better than puttingthat same money into a CD then the investors in that company needto question how well their money is being spent.
Debt to net worth measures a company’s ability to borrow money
and also how well the owners are leveraging their equity. “If the debt
to equity ratio is high, then the company cannot borrow more money
to either get through hard times or take advantage of an opportunity.
At the same time, many owners of private companies like to haveas high a ratio as possible, especially during times of low interest
rates, because this means the owner is leveraging his risk by using
the bank’s money and not his own.”
Interest coverage indicates how much additional money a company
can borrow. “This shows how much additional interest on debt canbe covered by a company’s cash flow.”152

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

and cash-to-cash cycle time. Certain activities are directly related tocertain performance categories. For instance, inventory management
will directly affect a company’s order and line item fill rate and its
inventory turns. Its procurement activity will directly affect its returnon sales and its upside ability. A company needs to collect data about its
activities in these four operational areas and monitor results.
The Supply-Chain Council’s SCOR model suggests the kind ofoperational data that should be collected. This data is referred to as“Level 2 Performance Metrics.” In the plan operation, useful measures
are the cost of planning activities, inventory financing costs, inventory
days of supply on hand, and forecast accuracy. In the sourcing operation, it is useful to have data on material acquisition costs, sourcing cycle
times, and raw material days of supply. Useful measures in the make
operation are the number of product defects/complaints, make cycle
times, build order attainment rates, and product quality. Suggested
delivery operation measures are fill rates, order management costs, orderlead times, and item return rates.
This data should be collected regularly and trends should be watched.
When performance targets start to be missed, the next step is to investigate the business operations that support that performance. Again the
SCOR model suggests more detailed data that can be collected andanalyzed in each of the four supply chain operating areas. This moredetailed data is referred to as “Level 3 Diagnostic Metrics.”
Diagnostic metrics can be used to analyze the complexity and configuration of the supply chain and also to study specific practices. In theplan operation, complexity measures are the number and percentage oforder changes, number of stock keeping units (SKUs) carried, production volumes, and inventory carrying costs. Configuration measures track
things such as product volume by channel, number of channels, andnumber of supply chain locations. Measures of management practices

153

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUESBusiness Operations
Support Company Performancein the plan operation are such things as planning cycle time, forecast accuracy, and obsolete inventory on hand.
In the source operation, measures of complexity and configuration
are number of suppliers, percentage of purchasing spending by distance,and purchased material by geography. Some practice measurements aresupplier delivery performance, payment period, and percentage of items
purchased by their associated lead time.
154

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

The make operation has measures of complexity and configurationsuch as number of SKUs, upside production flexibility, manufacturing
process steps by geographical location, and capacity utilization. Management practice measurements are value added percentage, build to order
percentage, build to stock percentage, percentage of manufacturing orderchanges due to internal issues, and work in process inventory.
In the fourth supply chain operation, deliver, there are complexity
measures that include number of orders by channel, number of line items
and shipments by channel, and percentage of line items returned. Configuration measures are delivery locations by geography and number ofchannels. Practice measures cover things like published delivery lead times,
percentage of invoices that contain billing errors, and order entry methods.

Collecting and Displaying Per formance Data
Historically, companies based their management decisions on periodic,
standard reports that showed what happened during some period in thepast. In stable and slow-moving business environments this worked wellenough. However, there are not many companies that work in stable andslow-moving environments any more.Working from traditional, periodic,
accounting-oriented reports in a fast-paced world is somewhat like trying
to drive a car by looking into the rear-view mirror.
The business environments we live in are characterized by shorterproduct life cycles, mass markets dissolving into smaller niche markets,and new technology and distribution channels constantly opening up
new opportunities. The pace of change is both exhilarating and relentless. A company must keep up. To do this, a company needs to build areporting system that presents data at three levels of detail:
Strategic—to help top management decide what to do•• Tactical—to help middle management decide how to do it• Operational—to help people actually do it
155ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Supply Chain Performance
Metrics and Diagnostic Measures(Supply-Chain Council SCOR Model)

156

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

Three Levels of Detail
In a supply chain management context, strategic data consists of current
actual, as well as plan and historical numbers that show the company’s
standing in the four performance categories: customer service; internal
efficiency; demand flexibility; and product development. In the SupplyChain Council SCOR model, data of this type is referred to as “Level1” data. This data is summarized by major business units and for thecompany as a whole. Strategic data also consists of data from outside thecompany such as market sizes and growth rates, demographics, and economic indicators such as GNP, inflation rates, and interest rates. There
should also be benchmark data from industry trade associations andstudies that show the operating standards and financial performancelevels that are standard for companies in the markets being served.
Tactical data consists of actual, plan, and historical numbers in thefour performance categories displayed at the branch office level ofdetail. This data also includes the performance metrics labeled “Level 2”
in the SCOR model. These metrics monitor the plan, source, make, anddeliver operations that every company in a supply chain must perform.
Operational data consists of the measures labeled “Level 3” in the
SCOR model. These measurements help people who are charged withgetting a job done to understand what is happening and to find ways tomake improvements where needed to meet the performance targets thathave been set. The SCOR model refers to these measurements as diagnostic measures.
We are awash in data. It is important to present it in such a way that
it is useful. If people are overwhelmed with data they cannot use it. By
organizing data into these three levels, people can quickly access what
they need to do their jobs. Upper management uses strategic level datato assess market conditions and set business performance objectives.
They can drill down to the tactical level or even the operational levels
157

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

when necessary. Middle managers use tactical data to do planning andresource allocation to achieve the performance objectives set by upper
management. Line managers and their staffs use operational data tosolve problems and get things done.

The Data Warehouse
To collect this data requires the creation of a data warehouse. This data
warehouse is a central repository of data that is drawn from a variety ofoperating systems and accounting systems in a company. It is important tocollect the needed data at its source. Tap into relevant systems within acompany and capture needed data automatically as a by-product of daily
operations. Avoid having people do manual entry to get data into the data
warehouse.
A data warehouse is composed of a database software package and theautomated connections to other systems needed to collect the relevant
data on a regular and timely schedule.Working in conjunction with the
database software is software that allows for the creation of standard
predefined reports and graphic displays which people can use to monitor
operations. In addition to predefined reports and displays, the softwaremust also allow people to do ad hoc queries of the data in the data
warehouse to do detailed investigations when necessary.
When designing and building a data warehouse it is best to start
quickly with something that is simple and on a smaller scale. This way
people can get experience in using data more actively to do their jobs. As
they gain experience and can clearly describe the additional features theywould like, larger and more complex data warehouses can be built.
Remember, the most important component in any data warehouse system
is not the technology, or even the data, but the people who use the systemand their ability to use the system effectively and learn from the data158

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

and become more efficient at their jobs. Chapter 6 goes into further
detail about the design and building of these kinds of systems.
In addition to helping people inside of a company to become more
efficient in performing their supply chain management jobs, a data warehouse can also be the foundation for collaboration with other companies
in the supply chain.Whatever information is shared between companies ina supply chain should be made available to those other companies electronically. This often takes the form of reports that can be retrieved on
demand by other companies who access a company’s data warehouse overthe Internet using features of the same data reporting software that people
inside the company use. See Exhibit 5.1.

Spotlighting Problems and Finding Oppor tunities
Depending on the type of markets a company serves, senior management needs to define a handful of key performance targets in the areasof customer service, internal efficiency, demand flexibility, and productdevelopment. The task then becomes one of figuring out how to manage operations to achieve the target numbers. The point of collecting
performance data is to help monitor and control daily, weekly, andmonthly operations.
People in a company need access to a one page display of the key
operating or financial measures that they are responsible for achieving.
These one page displays are known as “dashboards” because they showa person at a glance the data that is most important to them. The datathat is displayed on a senior management dashboard is different fromthat on an operating manager’s dashboard and the data on the dashboard of a staff person in one department is different from a staff person’s in another department.
Senior management sets company performance targets and theyneed access to a dashboard report that shows them the company’s current
159

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 5.1

Display Different Views of Data
to Different Audiences
Strategic Market View
(Market trends and company
performance targets)

Tactical Company View
(Allocation of resources to achieve
performance targets)

Operations View

AM
FL
Y

(Status of operations in each areaof the company)

Company Data
Warehouse

TE(Central store of data)

Reports toReports to

Customers

Suppliers

The data warehouse supports views of data at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. This makes it easy for management andstaff in a company to get quick access to the data they need to dotheir jobs. The data warehouse also supports the sharing of datawith customers and suppliers needed to coordinate supply chain
activities.

160

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

performance against these targets. If things are going well and performance is meeting expectations, then no further attention is called
for, but if performance is falling short against one or more of the performance targets, then the senior manager knows right away wheremore attention is needed.
Middle managers are responsible for managing their operations toachieve one or more of the company’s performance targets. Their dashboards need to show them the plan and actual data on company performance targets they are responsible for. They need to see quickly if
operations are on target or not and direct their attention accordingly.
Once alerted by their dashboard that there is a problem in a particulararea, the manager can then drill down into further detail in that area.
Staff people in various departments need dashboards that track andilluminate the specific business operations that they are responsible forsuch as purchasing, credit, inventory management, and so on. These displays should highlight issues needing their attention.
For the most part, people run their business or do their job by keeping track of a handful of key indicators. These indicators tell them whereto direct their attention and help them steer through a complex andchanging world.When a data warehouse and software reporting tools arein place in a company, people need to experiment with the design of
their dashboard displays or reports. As they get better at using their dashboards to guide their actions, the overall effect will be for the company
as a whole to become more efficient and more responsive to its markets.
Since very few companies work in stable and slow-moving markets
anymore, there is a great need to learn to use data effectively to makedecisions and act. Speed is a major competitive advantage. The faster acompany can spot problems and fix them or see opportunities andrespond to them, the more profitable the company will be. It will also
have a much better chance of survival over the long term. Companies

161

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 5.2

Dashboard Designs
are Different at Each Level
STRATEGIC Dashboard

TACTICAL Dashboard

OPERATIONAL Dashboard

People at different levels in an organization need to design their
dashboard displays so that they get quick and easy access to thedata they need to do their jobs and monitor their progress.

162

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

that can see their markets change and adjust and follow those markets
most efficiently are the ones that will stay in business. Companies that do
not notice problems soon enough or that do not see how their marketschange are the ones that will get into trouble. See Exhibit 5.2.

M arkets Migrate from One Quadrant to AnotherMarkets migrate from one quadrant to another during the course of
their lifecycle. Over time, market forces are always pushing a market
toward an equilibrium where supply meets demand. At the same time,other forces also influence a market so it fluctuates back and fortharound the equilibrium point. At times demand outstrips supply and atother times there is more supply than there is demand.
Companies in the supply chains that supply a market must be able
to adjust their operations over time as their markets migrate from one
quadrant to another in order to remain competitive. For instance, ingrowth markets, supply chains that do the best are the ones that havethe highest levels of customer service as measured by order fill rate andon-time delivery. All the companies in the supply chain must focus ondelivering this performance in order to succeed.
As a growth market moves on to a steady market, the most profitablecompanies will be those that are able to maintain high levels of existingcustomer service and also broaden the scope of their customer services. In
addition, profitable companies will be the ones that achieve the best levels
of internal efficiency. They can no longer focus only on customer service.
As steady markets become mature markets, the supply chains thatserve them must again develop their performance in another category.
Mature markets require companies to develop the capabilities neededto accommodate high levels of demand flexibility. Then in the midst of
mature markets, new developing markets can appear and the ability tocreate new products and bring them to market becomes critical.
163

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Adaptability itself is now as important to survival and success as thefour performance categories. Market evolution is now often measured
in years and sometimes in months. Gone are the days when marketschanged more slowly over decades. No company has the luxury of
being able to focus on optimizing any single mix of performance capabilities over the long term.
A company may become very skilled at internal efficiency and customer service as called for in a steady market. The company needs toremember though that its markets will change. The company will haveto add skills in the area of demand flexibility as some of its markets
mature. The company may even need to de-emphasize some of its
internal efficiency policies in order to emphasize its performance inproduct development so that it can participate in a promising developing market. The key here is that a company needs to know when to
shift its emphasis from one mix of performance categories to another.
A ship at sea needs to watch the wind and the waves and respond
appropriately when the weather changes. So too must a company watch
the supply and demand situation in its markets and respond appropriately when one of its markets enters a new quadrant. If the collection
and display of market and company performance data alerts a company to respond sooner to a market change than its competitors, then thecompany has indeed developed an important tool for its success andsurvival. See Exhibit 5.3.

Sharing Data Across the Supply Chain
As markets migrate from one quadrant to another, there are great demands
placed on the supply chains that support them. In fact, it is sometimes theoperation of the supply chain itself that can push a market from one quadrant to another. A case in point is illustrated by the beer game simulation
described in Chapter 3. This simulation shows how a slight change in164

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

EXHIBIT 5.3

Market Conditions Shift Over Time

A market (call it Market ‘X’) follows a lifecycle. It develops and thenit goes on to become a growth market which leads to a steady market and then a mature market and so on. Over time the forces ofsupply and demand are always pushing the market toward a steadystate where supply and demand are equal yet at the same timeother forces disrupt this balance.
The supply chains that support Market ‘X’ need to be able to provide
first one kind of performance and then another as the market
moves through its lifecycle. The companies that are most successful
in supplying this market are those that can adapt their performance
appropriately to follow the market as it changes.

165

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

demand by the end customer or the market can cause wildly escalatingproduct demand forecasts to be sent to companies further down the supply
chain. This “bullwhip” effect results in the production of large quantities
of inventory which can then outstrip the real demand in the market. This
event becomes the event that pushes a market out of the steady quadrant
and into the mature quadrant. As excess inventory gets used up, it graduallybrings the market back into the steady quadrant.
The cure for the bullwhip effect is better sharing of data among all
the companies in a supply chain. Companies need to work throughtheir concerns about sharing data that many of them might consider
confidential. There are serious questions to be answered.What data is it
reasonable to share? How can privacy of critical data be maintained?
What are the benefits of sharing data and how can they be quantified?
Hau Lee is a professor at Stanford University’s business school anddirector of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum. He
envisions the supply chain as an “intricate network of suppliers, distributors and customers who share carefully managed information
about demand, decisions and performance, and who recognize that success for one part of the supply chain means success for all.”If each company had demand information from the other companies
in its supply chain, it would help everyone to make the best decisions
about how much manufacturing capacity to build and how muchinventory to hold. Companies need to see demand information fromtheir immediate customers and also from the end customers that the
supply chain ultimately supports.
In addition to sharing demand data across the supply chain, companies need to share decisions they make that have supply chain implications.
A company could be unaware of decisions made by one of its customers
or one of its customer’s customers that will have a big impact on productdemand. For instance, a chain of retail stores may decide to run a special

166

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

promotion on a certain group of products.An analysis of past seasonal sales
data would not predict the spike in demand that will result from running
this promotion. So if the retail store chain does not share this decision
with its suppliers, there is a very good chance they will be caught shortand not be able to deliver enough product to support the promotion.
It is also important for companies to let each other know how wellthey are doing in the performance of their supply chain activities.
These metrics can then be combined to provide a holistic picture of theperformance of the entire supply chain.When each company in a supply chain sees how the supply chain is working overall, then each company can make better individual decisions about where performance
improvements are needed.
At present, companies are most likely to share demand information
with each other. There is already a lot of precedent for doing this. However, companies are much less likely to share their decisions or performance metrics because they are afraid that if this information gets out, it
could wind up in the hands of their competitors and be used against
them. The need for sharing this information continues to grow though.
Customers continue to demand more and more from their supply
chains. In an interview with CIO Magazine for an article titled “The
Cost of Secrecy,” professor Hau Lee said, “If you are late because your
distributor is late, your customers will go to a competitor whose distributor isn’t late. That is more than a company-to-company competition.
We’re going to see more supply-chain-to-supply-chain competition.”
Companies that can work together to create efficient supply chainsare going to be the ones that do the best over the long term. Companies
that can figure out how to share data effectively will be the ones to create
the most competitive supply chains. Customers are attracted to efficient
supply chains and they gain market share at the expense of less efficient
supply chains. See Exhibit 5.4.

167

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 5.4

Benefits of Data Sharing Acrossthe Entire Supply Chain
An individual company can achieve
high levels of customer service toits customer. However, this customer may not be the end use
customer that the supply chain
ultimately serves, in which case,the company may find that its success is short lived.

Company ‘A’ may be part of a supply chain (Supply Chain ‘Y’) that actually
maintains higher levels of inventory across the entire supply chain to deliver
the required level of customer service. A competing supply chain that does
not maintain as much inventory will be more profitable and can take moremarket share.

Whole supply chains can become more efficient if they are able to better
coordinate their operations. As supply and demand conditions change, coordination of inventory levels is critical to business success.

168

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Business realities do not always support the sharing of data among supply chain partners. Concerns about
privacy and competitive advantage often lead companies
not to share data such as sales and demand forecasts.
Jim Alexy is the CEO of Network Services Company, a multi-billion
dollar distribution organization. Prior to coming to Network Services
he held senior management positions at several of the manufacturers whose products Network Services sells. He can speak from theperspective of both the manufacturer and the distributor.
When asked about his experience in sharing data with othercompanies in a supply chain, he thought for a moment and thenresponded, “In a perfect world, yes it’s a great idea ...but if you doshare the data, it’s only a matter of time before some company
turns it against you. Each company has its own quarterly management incentive plans and people will do what they need to do tomeet their numbers.”
Companies do share data about things such as product demandand inventory levels. The problem is that companies often modify
this data to their own advantage. Customers often inflate theirdemand numbers in order to ensure that they will get the amount of
product they think they will really need. Jim said, “Most manufacturers have some sort of productivity targets they need to hit. Whenthey look at the demand data they get from customers it is so inaccurate that if they responded to all the fluctuations, their production
costs would go up and they still wouldn’t be producing the rightitems anyway.”
So companies take the data that others share with them and run
their own projections. “When I was CEO at Sweetheart Cups,” said
Jim, “there was a guy who worked for me who built these great
demand forecast models. He collected all the data and factored in

169

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)

AM
FL
Y

historical trends and ran the model. Then he looked at the results
and tweaked them in places where he had a strong hunch or somespecial information. And then after all of that, his forecasts still
weren’t as accurate as they could be because one of our major customers like McDonald’s wouldn’t tell us about a big promotion they
were planning to run and we’d be caught short in 12 ounce cups orsomething. They didn’t always tell us because they didn’t want word
to get out and then have a competitor take action to counter theirpromotion.” Because of the “tweaking” that companies do, the data
can get pretty distorted at times. And since demand data needs tobe much more accurate and believable before a company is goingto accept it at face value, the tweaking will continue.

TE

In spite of these issues, data sharing has enabled some major supply
chain improvements. “I think there has been a lot of inventory takenout of the system,” said Jim. “Just-in-time inventory has resulted in
major savings for everyone.” Just-in-time inventory is often implemented through a technique called vendor managed inventory or
VMI. Using this technique, the suppliers of products monitor inventory levels of their products within the companies that they sell to.
Their customers share inventory usage data and sales numbers andthe supplier keeps the inventory stocked at the right levels.
Companies are always weighing the costs and benefits of sharing
data and working together using techniques like VMI. “The wholeconcept of VMI is a very powerful concept. So why don’t I just picka small group of key suppliers and have them manage all my inventory for me? Well, the other side of that question is why do I want to
be in bed with just a few suppliers? They can arbitrarily change pricing,or have strikes or other production problems.”
It is very hard for companies to develop the level of credibility andtrust needed to establish tight working relationships. In the meantime,companies still benefit from developing the skill sets and tools thatallow them to analyze data and make decisions. “There is too much

170

Measuring Per formance: Supply Chain Metrics

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
data. People need ways to sift through it and find what’s important.
Computers will never be able to make all the decisions. There are apercentage of judgements that must always be made by people. The
better people are at making those judgements, the more productive
the company will be.”Chapter Summary
A useful model of markets can be constructed using the basic components of supply and demand. Using these two components results in amodel that defines four market quadrants:
1. DEVELOPING—New markets and new products where bothsupply and demand are low and uncertain
2. GROWTH—Markets where demand is higher than supply andsupply is uncertain
3. STEADY—Established markets where supply is high anddemand is high and both are stable and predictable
4. MATURE—Markets where supply exceeds demand and where

demand can be unpredictable
The markets in each quadrant have a unique set of performancerequirements that they place on their supply chains. Developing markets
require performance in the areas of customer service and product development. Growth markets demand customer service above all else. Steadymarkets call for customer service and for internal efficiency, and mature
markets require customer service, internal efficiency, and demand flexibility. In order to succeed, companies and supply chains must excel inthe performance areas that are required by the markets they serve.
Customer service performance is measured by metrics such as orderand line item fill rate, on-time delivery, and item return rates. Internal

171

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

efficiency refers to the ability of a company or supply chain to use its
assets as profitably as possible. Popular measures of internal efficiency
are metrics such as inventory value, inventory turns, and return on sales.
Demand flexibility describes the ability of a company or supply chain
to be responsive to sudden market demands for greatly increased quantities of product or for additional products outside the normal bundleof products provided. Product development measures an organization’s
ability to design, build, and deliver new products to serve their markets
as those markets evolve over time. Performance in this area is mostimportant in developing markets.

172

CHAPTER 6

Defining Supply Chain
Opportunities
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Apply the market analysis framework to define the type ofmarkets your company serves and identify the performancecapabilities most valuable to those markets• Define performance targets for your company to succeedin the markets you serve—the goal

• Create a strategy and define the objectives needed to reachthe goal• Estimate the budget needed for this effort and calculate
the return on investment (ROI)• Create the high-level project plan that will guide the effort
ow that conscious design and real-time management of a company’s
supply chain is possible, how does a company use this ability to its
competitive advantage? A well designed and managed supply chain
will enable a company to offer high levels of customer service and at
the same time hold its inventories and cost of sales to levels lower thanits competitors. This chapter will lay out a process to use for defining
the supply chain management opportunities available to a company.

N

173

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The Supply Chain as a Competitive Advantage
As companies such as Wal-Mart and Dell Computer have so clearlyshown, if a company can design and build a supply chain that is responsive to market demands, it can grow from a small company to becomea major player. Efficient supply chain operations are central to being able
to satisfy market demands and to do so in a way that is profitable.Where
once markets were shaped by the availability of product, now they areshaped by the evolving demands (some might say whims) of the end use
customers. Availability of most products is now taken for granted. So in
addition to the product itself, the market has a host of other requirements in the areas of customer service, demand flexibility, and productdevelopment. A company needs to understand where it fits in the supply
chains of the markets it serves. Then it needs to decide which activities
it will focus on to deliver value.
Supply chains that deliver the best value to their end use customers
generate a strong demand for products and services. They are goodplaces for producers, logistics providers, distributors, and retailers to dobusiness. The efficiency of the entire supply chain greatly affects eachcompany’s ability to prosper, so standards of performance evolve in these
supply chains over time. New companies cannot enter unless they canmeet these standards.What this means is that companies who are goodat their core supply chain operations work together in self-selecting
supply chains to deliver the greatest value to the end use customer.
It also means that there is great profit potential to be had for companies in a supply chain who learn to cooperate to generate efficiencies andcost savings for all. Skilled companies in specific markets that learn to work
together to achieve new levels of efficiency and cost savings will create
supply chains that grow faster than other supply chains in their markets.
We may even begin to look at a market in terms of the competing
supply chains that support it instead of just the competing supplier
174

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Companies that work together in supply chainsconduct an ongoing discussion about the value perceived
and paid for between supply chain partners. The balanceof power in the supply chain is always being explored.
Walt Dethlefsen is the executive vice president of Network Services
Company. Network Services is a distribution organization that handles
a bundle of products that includes printing paper and paper products,
food service disposables, and janitorial supplies. Network Services
participates in the supply chains of customers such as Starbucks,
Baskin-Robbins, 24 Hour Fitness Clubs, and Premier Health Care.
The company distributes the products of manufacturers such as
Georgia-Pacific, Kimberly Clark, Johnson Wax, 3M, and Rubbermaid.
One of Walt’s main activities is to manage the relationships that
Network Services has with its suppliers. His work gives him a firsthand view on a weekly basis of what it means to work in evolving
supply chains with demanding customers and manufacturers. “Bigmanufacturers used to have the most power but that is shifting
towards the big customer. Big customers now go directly to the manufacturers whose products they want to negotiate prices on and thenthey go to the distributor and negotiate the cost for product delivery.
“The distributor often has the least power now. For years the distributor was in the middle and could negotiate with both sides—thecustomer on one hand and the manufacturer on the other. There
were distributors who did a very good job negotiating with one or theother and sometimes both parties.” Customers these days have many
choices in what they buy and are very successful in driving down
prices. Manufacturers are also able to use many different channels
to market so they demand greater and greater performance fromthe distributors they work with.
“The only distributors who are able to defy the price squeeze andmaintain reasonable margins are the ones who are able to create a

175

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
brand. Typically they recreate their whole company into a brand. The
brand stands for all the products they sell plus everything else thatthey provide for the customer. When the customer buys from them
they know that trucks will show up at the right time with the rightstuff, that they will get quality products and top notch customer
service, all at a fair acquisition cost.”
The power of the distributor in a supply chain depends very much on
the type of manufacturers that they work with. “I would say we workwith three kinds of manufacturers,” says Walt. The first kind is thebrand name manufacturer who has a retail consumer side of theircompany as well as a business-to-business side. “What they mostly
expect from the distributor is logistics and customer support in thefield.”The second kind of manufacturer focuses mainly on the businessto-business market and views the distributor as their customer.
“They are generally selective and will only sell to distribution thatgives them a lot of participation. They typically limit the number of
distributors in a market if they are satisfied with the penetration they
provide.”In the third group of manufacturers are companies who are basicallyconverters or smaller manufacturers. Converters take a finishedproduct from another manufacturer and further customize it. For
instance, they may buy bulk rolls of towel and tissue grade paper andcut it to customer specifications. Also in this group are small specialty manufacturers of product lines that have little brand recognition. “These companies are the ones who are most dependent on
the distributor to get their product to market. They have small sales
forces and rely on distributors to develop the end use market for
their products. They produce products with little known brand names
and typically they lead with price.”

176

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

companies within the market. Just as we now rate individual companies
by their profitability and customer service levels, we may begin to measureentire supply chains on their overall performance in these areas.

I dentify the Business Oppor tunity
and Define the Goal
Supply chain opportunities generally come in one of two categories.
The first category is to fix or improve something already in place. The
second category is to build something new. In both categories you haveto first define the goal and then set about to accomplish that goal.
Depending on which type of opportunity you are pursuing, the way toaccomplish the goal will be different.
If you are pursuing an opportunity that is in the “fix or improvesomething already existing” category, then use Mr. Goldratt’s theory of
constraints as your guidelines for taking action. These guidelines are
summarized in an executive insight section in Chapter 3. If you aregoing after an opportunity in the “build something new” category, thenuse the process outlined in this chapter.
New markets emerge, existing markets evolve, and mature markets
fade away. A market creates a demand for a bundle of products andservices to support it. Over the life span of a market its supply chain
evolves in response to the forces of supply and demand. Companies that
supply a market must evolve along with the demands of that market.
What are the markets your company serves and who are the end use
customers in these markets? Who are the producers in these markets?
Who are the distributors, the logistics providers, and the retailers? What
are the products and services demanded by this market?
What is the supply and demand situation in the markets you serve?
The supply chain opportunities available to a company depend on whichquadrants the markets it serves are in. Use the market analysis framework
177

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

to determine which market quadrants your company deals with.Whichquadrants are your markets in today? Which quadrants do you thinkthey will be in two years from now? Compare your organization against
competing organizations in your markets. Identify whether you lead,
equal, or lag your competitors in the areas of:Customer Service•• Internal Efficiency• Demand Flexibility• Product Development

Each market is best served by some combination of performance inthese four areas. Define whether your company needs to lead, equal, oreven excel in each of these areas. Identify the position your company
needs to take in the four areas to best align itself with the demands ofthe markets it serves.
As discussed in Chapter 4, a company must lead in flexibility if its
target markets are in quadrant three, and it must lead in internal efficiency if its markets are in quadrant four. A company must excel in product development if its markets are in quadrant one and companies mustmeet high customer service standards in all market quadrants. Set theperformance targets needed to achieve this market alignment. These performance targets define the goal. They become the measures of success.

C reate the Strategy
Once a business goal is defined and the performance targets are set, thenext step is to create a strategy to accomplish this. Strategy can be defined
as simply,“the use of means to achieve ends.” In other words, a strategy
uses the business operations (means) of an organization to achieve its
goals (ends).

178

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

To define the strategy, begin by looking at the supply chain operations that are performed in your company. Achieving the performancetargets that have been set will require improvements in one or more of
the four categories of business operations that are used to manage thesupply chain:
Plan•• Source• Make• Deliver

Use Brainstorming to Generate Ideas
Brainstorm a large list of improvement ideas for the operations undereach of the four categories. Ask the question, “ What seems impossible
to do, but if it could be done, would dramatically change the way we
do business?” Look for ways to change the business landscape—ways togive your organization a significant competitive advantage by doing
something new and different.Where no new ideas are found, look forways to significantly improve existing operations to get greater performance and better cost savings. Better efficiencies in existing operations
will rarely provide huge business wins but they help ensure the company’s survival.
Take the time to work up a large list of ideas. These ideas are theraw material from which the business strategy will emerge.When a sufficiently large body of ideas has been generated, review the lists andselect three to six or so of the ideas that seem to have the most impact.
These are ideas that will deliver improvements in multiple operations
or performance categories. They are also ideas that promise the greatest
payback and have the highest likelihood of success. These are the ideasthat now need to get further attention. They will be the foundation
upon which the strategy is based. See Exhibit 6.1.
179

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 6.1

TE

AM
FL
Y

Improve Selected Business Operations
to Meet Performance Targets

Network Services set a goal and performance targets that called for
improvements in the categories of customer service and demand
flexibility. To excel in these two categories, Network Services Co.
had earlier made major improvements in its credit and collections
operations. Next, it decided to improve its demand forecasting, product pricing, and order management operations.

180

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

Examine this handful of most promising ideas that have been selected.
How will these ideas play out over the next few years? How do these ideas
work together to form a big picture sequence of events that will takethe organization from where it presently is to where it wants to go—theaccomplishment of its business goals? What things have to be done, what
new operating procedures and information systems need to be createdin order to carry out these ideas? What are the best guesses as to the time
it will take to create these new operating procedures and systems?
Look to see how these ideas relate to each other. Does the implementation of one idea build upon the implementation of a previous idea?
What sequence should be followed in the implementation of these ideas?
What kind of changes in operations, technology, and staffing are called
for to implement each idea and how can these changes be done in a manageable way? How can the implementation of these ideas be broken up
into phases that can each be completed in three to nine months? A phaseneeds to create deliverables that provide value in their own right and thatcan be put to use as soon as the phase is completed. See Exhibit 6.2.
It is important to both see the big picture that stretches over a periodof several years and also to segment this big picture into smaller phases.
This way the company is able to begin receiving tangible benefits fromits work in a relatively short period of time. It can also respond to new
developments in the business environment in a timely manner by adjusting its strategy as necessary as it completes each phase. There is a sayingthat sums up this approach very nicely: “Think big, start small, anddeliver quickly.”

Create a Conceptual System Design
The strategy to achieve the business goals is expressed in the conceptual
design. The conceptual design is the high-level outline of a system or aset of systems. Generate several different conceptual designs for systems
181

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 6.2

Network Services’
Development Strategy

PHASE 1
Build version 1.0 of
e-business systems(9 Months)

PHASE 2
Assist member
companies(3 Months)

PHASE 3
Build version 2.0 of
e-business systems(9 Months)

PHASE 4Integrate into
supply chains(Quarterly)

182

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

that will meet the desired performance criteria. Approach the conceptual
design first from the perspective of the business processes that are supported. Sketch out the different operations that are performed and notethe kind of information that is required by and created by each operation.
Then add further definition to these process flows by specifying thedata flows into and out of each operation. For each operation, estimate
the volume and frequency of the data flows and also the source and destination of each data flow. In addition, for each operation, define thetypes of people (if any) who will perform this work. How many people
will there be? What are the skill levels of the different types of people?
This kind of business process diagram is illustrated in Exhibit 6.3.
Next, decide which operation will be automated, which will be
manual, and which will be part automated and part manual. As a rule,people will like systems that automate the rote and repetitive tasks andempower them to do the problem-solving and decision-making tasks
more effectively. People really are the most valuable resource of any
company, so design systems that make maximum use of their skills.
Technology’s role is to support the people who use it, not the other way
around.
Evaluate the existing computer system’s infrastructure in place inyour organization. Look for ways to build on that infrastructure. The
most cost effective systems are those that deliver valuable new capabilities to an organization quickly and with a minimum of effort.
Select the simplest combinations of technology and business processes
that will meet the specified performance criteria. Balance the need forsimplicity with the ability to increase the capacity of the system to handle
greater volumes of data and to add new functionality as the business
operations grow in volume. And remember that markets move overtime from one quadrant to another so build a supply chain infrastructurethat is flexible enough to change with the needs of the markets your183

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 6.3

Diagram of the Business Process Flows

This diagram shows the business process flows that were includedin the design of the first version of the Network Services e-businesssystem.

184

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

company serves. Do not design a system that locks the company into
one way of operating and that is not capable of evolving to support
new operations.
Create high level schematic diagrams to illustrate each conceptual
system design. In these diagrams use simple shapes like cubes and cylinders and spheres to represent different components of the design.
Connect these shapes with lines and arrows to show the direction ofdata flow and activity. Do not get too technical or detailed in these diagrams. Their purpose is to quickly communicate the basic structure of
the proposed designs.
These schematic diagrams are invaluable in communicating the features of the different designs to a wide audience of people. Reviews andcomments should be sought from people who will use the new system,
people who will pay for it, and people who will build it. Thoughtful input
from a wide audience of people is very helpful in selecting the best
design and then in adjusting that design to increase the likelihood that
it will succeed.

Strategic Guidelines for Designing Systems
Designing supply chain systems or any other kind of system can quickly
become a very complex undertaking. The business manager can cometo feel overwhelmed by the possible choices and be tempted to leavethis activity to the technical experts. Do not give in to this temptation.
Business management must remain actively involved with the technicalpeople in creating the conceptual design for the system. It is in thisactivity that the business manager can exercise very effective control
over the strategy that the company will take to accomplish its goal. This
activity cannot be left entirely to technical people because they usually
do not have the depth of business knowledge that is needed to makethe best decisions.
185

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The best approach is for business and technical people to work
together and generate a number of possible conceptual designs. Evaluate
the goodness of each conceptual design by applying the seven guidelines
for the design of new systems. These guidelines provide a basis to compare different designs and to select the conceptual design that has thebest chance of success. A design that respects all seven of these guidelines is the best. It may still be a workable design if one or two of theseguidelines are violated (as long as it is not the first of the seven guidelines shown below). If guidelines are violated, there need to be very
good reasons for doing so and specific compensations made to coverthose violations. If three or more guidelines are broken, then the conceptual design is seriously flawed and it is very unlikely that the design
can be successfully built.
The seven system design guidelines are:
1. Closely align system designs with the business goals and performancetargets they are intended to accomplish. For any systems development project to be a success it must directly support the organization to achieve one or more of its goals. No new system canbe effective until you have first identified or created the business
opportunity that will make the system worth building and no
new system will bring any sustained benefit to your company
unless it supports the efficient exploitation of the business opportunity it was built to address.
2. Use systems to change the competitive landscape. Ask yourself what

seems impossible to do today, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change what your company does in a positive way.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. In the words of theNordstrom’s motto, think of what would “surprise and delight”
your customers. Look for opportunities to create a transforma-

186

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

tion or value shift in your market. Find ways to do things thatprovide dramatic cost savings or productivity increases. Place
yourself in your competitor’s shoes and think of what course
you could take that would be the least likely to be foreseen or
quickly countered or copied. As long as you are able to do something of value that your competitors cannot, you have an advantage. If you are going to take bigger risks and incur larger costs
to develop a system, then make sure it is a system that will change
the competitive landscape. This is the kind of system that candeliver benefits that might justify bigger risks and costs.
3. Leverage the strengths of existing systems infrastructure. When exist-

ing systems have proven over time to be stable and responsive, findways to incorporate them into the design of new systems. The
purpose of strategy is to best use the means available to the organization to accomplish its goal. The design of a system is theembodiment of the strategy being used. Build new systems on thestrengths of older systems. That is what nature does in the evolutionary process. New systems provide value only insofar as they
provide new business capabilities. Time spent replacing old systems with new systems that do essentially the same things will
not, as a general rule, provide enough value to justify the cost.
4. Use the simplest possible combination of technology and business pro-cedures to achieve the maximum number of performance targets. A
simple mix of technology and process that can achieve several
different performance targets increases the probability that atleast some performance targets can actually be achieved. This isbecause simple combinations of technology and business process
reduce the complexity and the risk associated with the systems.
Using a different combination of technology and business process

187

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

to achieve each different performance target multiplies the cost
and the complexity of the entire undertaking and reduces the overall probability of success.
5. Structure the design so as to provide flexibility in the development

sequence used to create the system. Break the system design into
separate components or objectives and as much as possible, run
the work on individual objectives in parallel. Try not to make theachievement of one objective dependent on the prior achievement of another objective. In this way, delays in the work toward
one objective will not impact the progress toward other objectives. Use people on the project who have skills that can be used
to achieve a variety of different objectives. If you use the same
technology to achieve several different objectives, it is much easier
to shift people from one objective to another as needed because
the skill sets used are the same. Your project plan should foreseeand provide for an alternative plan in case of failure or delays inachieving objectives as scheduled. The design of the system you
are building should allow you to cut some system features if
needed and yet still be able to deliver solid value to the business.
6. Do not try to build a system whose complexity exceeds the organi-zation’s capabilities. The beginning of wisdom is a sense of what
is possible so don’t bite off more than you can chew. Whendefining business goals and the systems to reach those goals, aim
for things that are within your reach. Set challenging goals but
not hopeless goals. The people in your organization need to haveconfidence in themselves in order to rise to a challenge. Avoid
exhausting their confidence in vain efforts to reach unrealistic
goals.

188

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

7. Do not renew a project using the same people or the same systemdesign after it has once failed. A mere reinforcement of effort orjust trying harder is not a sufficient enough change to ensure thesuccess of a project after it has once failed. People are probably
demoralized after the first failure and will not rise to the challenge of doing the work again unless there are meaningfulchanges in the project approach. The new approach must clearlyreflect what was learned from the previous failure and offer abetter way to achieve the business goal and performance targets.

TIPS & TECHNIQUESStrategic System
Design Guidelines
The seven system design guidelines are:
Closely align system designs with the business goals and performance targets they are intended to accomplish.
Use systems to change the competitive landscape.
Leverage the strengths of existing systems infrastructure.
Use the simplest possible combination of technology and business procedures to achieve the maximum number of performance targets.
Structure the design so as to provide flexibility in the development sequence used to create the system.
Do not try to build a system whose complexity exceeds theorganization’s capabilities.
Do not renew a project using the same people or the same
system design after it has once failed.

189

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

IN THE REAL WORLD

Network Services applied the strategic guidelines
for designing systems to create a conceptual design for
its e-business systems infrastructure.

AM
FL
Y

Network Services selected a conceptual design for its e-businesssystems infrastructure that would best enable it to meet its performance targets. This design was presented to an audience that
ranged from the board of directors to senior management to thepeople who would build the systems infrastructure and the people
who would use the systems. Feedback from all these people helped
to finalize the design. The schematic diagram for this conceptual
design is shown in Exhibit 6.4.

TE

The systems infrastructure is composed of four main componentsthat work together to provide a flexible and cost effective infrastructure that can change as business conditions evolve and canhandle greater and greater volumes of data as business operations
grow. The four main components are:
The Extranet—A high-speed, Internet-based network to provide
all member companies with a secure environment in which toexchange information and work together to serve national
accounts.
Web-Based E-Commerce Systems—A suite of systems
accessed via the Network Services web site. A packaged system from an application service provider (ASP) named
Tibersoft is used to provide order entry, inventory, and orderstatus. Network Services provides the sales history reporting
system. This suite of e-commerce systems is also available tomember companies to serve their local customers.
NSC Data Warehouse—A collection of databases to support
the web-based e-commerce operations and internal NSC operations such as proposal development, price file maintenance,account book creation, and sales reporting.

190

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
Data Delivery System (NetLink-NSC™)—A two-way, Internetbased data transfer system to allow each member company’s
internal systems to read and write data in a common format
to support delivery of seamless and consistent national
account service. This component incorporated and reused
software from an earlier system that provided for receipt anderror checking of invoice data from member companies.
EXHIBIT 6.4

Conceptual Design for
E-Business Systems Infrastructure

The greatest value for the company lay in the construction of the data warehouse to house the databases and in building the data delivery systemcalled “NetLink-NSC™.” Those components working together would best
meet the performance criteria defined by the company. In order to meet thefinancial performance criteria and reduce project risk, Network Services
decided to lease the use of an existing Web-based product catalog andorder entry system instead of building its own.

191

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Define Project Objectives
When you look at a schematic diagram that illustrates a conceptual
design, the system is shown as a set of high-level components. Defining
these high-level components is a somewhat subjective process since
there is a range of possible ways to design a system—some better thanothers. The better designs will define high-level components that arehighly cohesive in the functions they perform. This means that eachcomponent performs a set of tasks that are all closely related to a single
and well-defined activity. For instance, a highly cohesive component in
a conceptual design could be an order entry system. This component
does all the things that need to be done for a customer to enter an orderand that is all it does.
A component that is not cohesive would be a component that didorder entry and also managed a database of sales information and alsorouted orders to different business locations. Showing all those activities
as one component in a schematic design does not provide enough definition of the design to enable people to evaluate it effectively. This
component should be broken down into three separate components—
one for order entry, one for database management, and one for datatransmission.
The building of each of these high-level components defines a setof specific, measurable activities or objectives that need to be achievedin order to create the system. There will tend to be somewhere between
three to nine high-level components and all other components will
resolve into sub-components of these high-level components. Why
only three to nine high-level components? Because most of us are justregular folks and we cannot comprehend at a glance or remember morethan seven (plus or minus two) things at a time. A clear and simple system design goes a long way toward insuring the success of the project
because the people involved with it can understand it.
192

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

If a conceptual design is produced that is so complex only a genius
can understand it, then the conceptual design is useless. People will not
be able to use it to effectively guide their work in the detailed design
and building of the system.Without a clear conceptual design, the people involved with building, using, and paying for the system will all havedifferent ideas about what the company is trying to accomplish. People
working on the different parts of the system will find it increasingly difficult to coordinate their actions with each other. The level of tension
and misunderstanding and arguing will rise higher and higher as thework continues.
The development of each component in the conceptual systemdesign becomes an objective in the project to build the system. Similar
to the way that a long-term strategy is broken down into self-sufficientphases that each provide value in their own right, the building of a new
system should be broken down into a set of objectives that each provide value in their own right. An objective should not be just an intermediate step along the way that depends on the completion of somefuture step to be of value. Objectives should each be achievable in three
to nine months (or less). Look for objectives that can be achieved
quickly. These will begin providing value and repaying the cost of the
project before it is even entirely finished. Once achieved, an objective
should become a base from which other objectives can be achieved.
Also be careful not to define objectives that lock the project intosome rigid sequence of development activities. The world rarely goesaccording to plan, so the plan must be flexible in order to adapt as reality unfolds. Begin work on as many objectives as possible at the sametime (in parallel). As much as possible, make the tasks needed to achieveeach objective independent of the tasks needed to achieve the otherobjectives. This provides maximum flexibility, so that if one objective isdelayed, it will not also delay the completion of other objectives being

193

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

done in parallel. Resources can then be shifted from one objective toanother as needed to respond to situations that arise.

Create an Initial Project Plan and Budget
It is always a challenge to create a project plan early in the project when
there are so many things that are not entirely known. There will bemuch agonizing and grumbling about the plan. People will feel thatthey are being asked to commit to something that they know very little
about and that whatever they say will come back to haunt them. In an
attempt to give themselves as much wiggle room as possible, some people
will create plans that are so high level and vague that they are little morethan smoke screens. Other people will plunge into the task with determination and produce a plan showing minute detail about things that canhardly be defined yet. These plans are little more than wishful thinking
about a future that will probably be nothing like what is shown.
So what is to be done? Let’s start with a definition. Simply stated, aplan is a sequence of non-repetitive tasks that lead to the achievementof one or more predefined objectives that do not yet exist. A plan should
not be confused with an operating schedule, which is a repetitive sequenceof tasks that perpetuate an already existing state of affairs. This meansthat the plan should focus on laying out the tasks that need to be performed to achieve each objective that was identified in the conceptual
system design. Do not clutter up the project plan with repetitive tasks
that are related to ongoing administrative or business operations.
Create a section of the overall project plan for each objective. In thesection of the plan for each objective, list the major tasks needed toachieve that objective. There will be tasks related to designing and thenbuilding the deliverables necessary for each objective. Show the dependencies between the tasks related to an objective and show the dependencies
between the objectives.
194

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

When estimating how long each task will take, remember the oldsaying that “any job will expand to fill the time available.” Use a technique called “time boxing” to define the time limits for each task. This
technique calls for a trade-off between the work involved in carryingout a task and the time that is available. Realistic and adequate time
periods must be assigned to each task but then it is up to the people
doing the work to tailor the job to fit the time that is allocated.When
setting these time boxes, get input from the people who will be asked
to do the work. In a good plan the time boxes for each task are aggressive and they require people to work hard and stay focused, but theyshould not be so aggressive as to make people feel they have no chanceof getting the work done.
A useful way to think about the work on a project and the corresponding time boxes is to divide time spent on a project into three main
steps and assign an overall time box to each of the main steps. Then
within each step, subdivide the time available to accommodate the tasks
that are involved. The three steps and their durations are:
1. Define what is going to be done—the goal and the objectives.

(2–6 weeks)
2. Design how that will be done—the detailed specifications. (1–3months)3. Build what is specified. (2–6 months)

For each objective set a time box for the design step and the build
step. Don’t worry about the define step—that is what you are doingright now and showing it on the plan is not necessary. Look at the tasks
that are required to achieve each objective. For example, let’s say that
Objective A has a one-month time box for design and a two-monthtime box for build. Decide which tasks fall into the design step andwhich tasks are in the build step. Allocate the time available in design
among the tasks involved and do the same for the tasks in the build step.
195

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXHIBIT 6.5

How to Create an Initial Project Plan

The Network Services Co. e-business project objectives were defined by theconceptual system design. The conceptual design had four components:
The Extranet
Web-Based E-Commerce Systems
The Data Warehouse
The NetLink-NSC™ Data Delivery SystemThus, the creation of each of these four components became a project
objective. There was also a fifth objective to address the strategy of providing
technical skills and resources to member companies. This initial projectplan laid out the time boxes for the effort needed to achieve each objective.
These time boxes defined the amount of time available for each activity.
Work was then tailored to fit the times available.

196

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

You have now subdivided the larger design and build time boxes for
Objective A into smaller time boxes for the tasks that are involved.
Assigning time boxes is an iterative process. It involves adjusting boththe time allocations and the scope of the work that will be done. It willprobably take several passes through the plan before you have something that seems reasonable—something that is both aggressive and yet
still doable. See Exhibit 6.5 for an example of an initial project plan.

E stimate the Project Budget and ROIThis is the step where you answer one of the most fundamental questions about the project—“Is this project worth doing?” Once a plan has
been constructed, the budget can be created. Project plans and budgets
are just two sides of the same coin. Plans show the time, people, andmaterial needed to get things done and budgets show the cost of thepeople and material over the time frames involved. Although, in manycases, the cost and benefits related to a project cannot be defined withabsolute certainty, it is still a valuable exercise to get as accurate an estimate as possible.
The value comes in two areas. The first is that this is an opportunity
to create a consensus among the people who have to pay for the system.
Everyone whose budget will be affected by the project should have an
opportunity to review the costs and the benefits of the project. It is
often hard to assign specific values to the benefits but it must be done.
When in doubt, understate the benefits—just make sure that the benefit numbers are ones that people can understand and support. The sumof these benefit numbers is the value of the project and it is very
important to have agreement on the value of a project.
The value of the project is the main reference point to keep inmind when evaluating the rest of the project. The value of the system
is what tells you how much can be spent to build the system. If the costs
197

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

System Development Sequence

These three steps provide a useful way to think about the work that has tobe done to create a new system. Under each step is shown the deliverables
that need to be produced and estimating guidelines for how long each stepshould take to complete and how much of the total project budget shouldbe spent on that step.

198

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

to develop a system add up to more than the benefits that will be produced, then there are two choices. Either find a less expensive way to
produce those benefits or simply do not do the project. Businesses exist to
make a profit and that is a discipline that all business people must live with.

Define the Specific Costs and Benefits
From a financial perspective, a system generates a stream of costs andbenefits over the length of time in which it is built and used. As a rule,a system should pay for itself and return an appropriate profit within
one to three years because after that time the system will usually needmajor enhancements or a complete reworking. Specific benefits need tobe identified and estimates made of their dollar value. Measure systemcosts and benefits on a quarterly basis. Subtract costs from benefits toarrive at the quarterly cash flow generated by the system. Calculate thevalue of that cash flow using whatever method the financial decisionmakers would like (net present value, internal rate of return, etc.). The
higher the risk involved in building and operating the system, the higher
the profit that the system should generate.

System Costs
In a system development project there are three types of costs:
1. Hardware and software costs for the hardware, software, and com-munication network components that need to be purchased fromvendors for the new system design.
2. Development costs as estimated by the time and cost needed toachieve each project objective. Each task that is part of the work
plan for an objective will require some number of people withcertain skills for some period of time. Each task will also require
certain technology and perhaps other expenses, such as travel, hotel
rooms, and meals. Set a standard cost for each kind of person and
199

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Cost/benefit analysis calls for finance executives
to exercise judgment based on experience and industry
norms.

AMFL
Y

Network Services’ CFO, Bob Mitchum, uses some rules of thumbwhen he looks at a cost/benefit analysis. “First of all, I use a 12- to
18-month time frame for the analysis and I need to see an attractive payback in that time. If you accept a three- to five-year payback
period you are probably using the analysis to justify what is really an
emotional decision. Beyond 18 months the world changes in ways
you cannot predict and I don’t think you can effectively estimate
numbers that far out.”TE

Costs are usually easier to estimate than benefits. A realistic estimate of benefits is very important. “Look at the tangible benefits
and try to assign some numbers over a period of time. Then look atother intangible benefits such as reputation and relationships withcustomers and suppliers. Look at employee productivity and leveraging their talents. Who are the stakeholders? What are the alternatives to doing the project and getting the same benefits?
“When I looked at the design and the cost benefit analysis for thee-business systems infrastructure for Network Services, I saw a coupleof things. We knew that many national accounts weren’t going touse our order entry system to key in orders. They would have their own
system. But unless we could check off a box on a checklist that, yes,
we had a web-based ordering system, we wouldn’t make it past thefirst cut in the screening process. So the design proposed to use anapplication service provider to deliver that feature on a pay-as-you-gobasis. The real benefits came from electronic communications between
us and the members and that was where the bulk of the proposed
budget was going to be spent. These communication links would
make us stronger as a core group. The investment would strengthen
the organization. The conceptual design met our basic needs and provided the most cost efficient way to do so. The price tag was much
lower than the price of the other options that were presented.”200

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

estimate the labor expenses for each kind of person for eachstep in the system development lifecycle: the DEFINE step; the
DESIGN step; and the BUILD step.
3. Operating costs have a number of components. Estimate labor

expenses for the kinds of people that will be needed for ongoing
operation and support of the new system. Estimate the line
charges and usage fees for the communications network andtechnical architecture used by the system. Obtain yearly licensing
and technical support costs from vendors of the hardware andsoftware components used by the new system.

System Benefits
There are four types of benefits provided by a new system:
1. Direct benefits are productivity increases and cost savings due tothe capacity increases brought about by a new system. Define the
new functions the system provides that the company does not
now have. Estimate the productivity increases and labor savings
that these new features provide.
2. Incremental benefits are monetary benefits that may not be solely

a result of the new system but are measurable and due in somesignificant degree to the capabilities of the new system. This may
be an increased ability to attract and retain new customers and theextra revenue that generates. It may be the new system’s ability
to help the company avoid bad decisions or manage and plan forcertain business expenses and the reduced costs that result.
3. Cost avoidance benefits are savings related to the increased

capacity provided by the new system and the company’s ability
to grow the business without having to hire new staff or hire as
many new staff as would otherwise be the case.
201

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

4. Intangible benefits are hard to quantify into a money amount but

should be identified and listed. These benefits include such things
as maintenance of a competitive advantage through better intelligence and adaptability; superior service levels that solidify customer
relationships; and leveraging the abilities of talented employees
and increasing their job satisfaction.
TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Sample Cost/Benefit Analysis
ITEM PRICING SYSTEM—TOTAL ESTIMATED COSTS & BENEFITS
Project Description
Build system to assist staff of account development group to more
quickly create contract proposals and explore impact of different
product cost and pricing structures. Monitor status of existing contracts and provide notice before cost supports expire.
Project Cost & Benefits (Dollars in Thousands)
Qtr 1
Hardware & Software(7.0)

Development Costs(68.5)

Qtr 2

Qtr 3

Qtr 4

Qtr 5

Totals
(7.0)(68.5)

Operating Costs

0.0

(1.2)

(1.2)

(1.2)

(1.2)

(4.8)

Total Costs(75.5)

(1.2)

(1.2)

(1.2)

(1.2)

(80.3)

Direct Benefits

0.0

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.4

33.6

Incremental Benefits

0.0

30.0

30.0

30.0

30.0

120.0

Cost Avoidance Benefits

0.0

18.2

18.2

18.2

18.2

72.8

Total Benefits

0.0

56.6

56.6

56.6

56.6

226.4

Net Benefits($75.5) $55.4

$55.4

$55.4

$55.4 $146.1

Cumulative Benefits($75.5) ($20.1) $35.3$90.7 $146.1

Discount Rate

5% (5% per Qtr. = 20% Annual Discount Rate)

Net Present Value

60.6

202

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

TIPS & TECHNIQUES (CONTINUED)
Detailed Schedule of Costs
Cost of Hardware & Software (Dollars in Thousands)
Item

Description

Cost

Application Server

Server to run the system—allocate
1/3 of server cost

3.0

Personal Computers

PCs for use by staff—allocate
1/3 of cost

3.0

Visual Basic language

Allocated cost of VB programming
language and tools

0.5

Allocated cost of SQL Server and tools

0.5

SQL Server database
Total

$7.0

Cost of Development (Dollars in Thousands)
Task

Description

Cost

Define Phase

5 days at average cost of $900 per day

4.5

Design Phase

15 days at average cost of $900 per day

13.5

Build Phase—Coding

30 days at average cost of $900 per day

27.0

Build Phase—
Test & Train

30 days at average cost of $650 per day

19.5

Build Phase—Roll Out

5 days at average cost of $800 per day

4.0

Total

$68.5

Cost of Operation (Dollars in Thousands)
Activity

Description

Cost

Qtr 2

Incremental costs of operating the system

1.2

Qtr 3

Incremental costs of operating the system

1.2

Qtr 4

Incremental costs of operating the system

1.2

Qtr 5

Incremental costs of operating the system

Qtr 1

Total

1.2
$4.8

203

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

TIPS & TECHNIQUES (CONTINUED)
Detailed Schedule of Benefits
DIRECT BENEFITS (revenue and cost savings due to productivity
improvements)
Direct Benefit 1

Save staff time on proposal creation: 10 proposals
per Qtr.; 20 Hrs. per proposal; $35/Hr.

Direct Benefit 2

Do 2 additional proposals per Qtr.; 20 Hrs./proposal;$35/Hr.

Value of Productivity Improvement (Dollars in Thousands)
Qtr 1

Qtr 2

Qtr 3

Qtr 4

Qtr 5

Save time on proposals

7.0

7.0

7.0

7.0

Do 2 additional proposals

1.4

1.4

1.4

1.4

$8.4

$8.4

$8.4

$8.4

Total Direct Benefit$0.0

INCREMENTAL BENEFITS (benefits due in part to new system, e.g.,
attract new customers, make better decisions, etc.)
Incremental Benefit 1

Win more proposals due to better pricing decisions:$30,000 per Qtr. in additional profits

Incremental Benefit 2—

Value of Incremental Benefit (Dollars in Thousands)
Qtr 1

Qtr 2

Qtr 3

Qtr 4

Qtr 5

Win more proposals

30.0

30.0

30.0

30.0

Incremental Benefit 2

—

—

—

—

$30.0

$30.0

$30.0

$30.0

Total Incr Benefit

$0.0

204

Defining Supply Chain Oppor tunities

TIPS & TECHNIQUES (CONTINUED)
COST AVOIDANCE BENEFITS (savings related to growing business without needing to add new staff or incurring other expenses)
Cost Avoidance 1

Avoid hiring more staff as business grows: half aperson per year; $35/Hr.

Cost Avoidance 2—

Value of Cost Avoidance (Dollars in Thousands)
Qtr 1

Avoid hiring more staff
Cost Avoidance 2
Total CA Benefit

$0.0

Qtr 2

Qtr 3

Qtr 4

Qtr 5

18.2

18.2

18.2

18.2

—

—

—

—

$18.2

$18.2

$18.2

$18.2

INTANGIBLE BENEFITS (benefits that are hard to quantify in dollar
amounts but that should be identified and listed)
Maintain Competitive Advantages• Item Pricing system should be a competitive benefit for next 2 yrs.
• After that, it will simply become a necessary tool to do business
Provide Superior Service Levels
customers and prospects with timely and accurate• Provideproposals

Increase Job Satisfaction
staff from tedious and time consuming pricing• Releasecalculations• Allow staff to focus on more valuable and interesting work

205

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Chapter Summary
The work of defining supply chain opportunities will be complete
when the following five deliverables are produced:
1. A clear statement of the business goal to be accomplished2. The performance criteria required from the system. These criteria

fall into four measurement categories: 1) internal efficiency;
2) customer service; 3) demand flexibility; and 4) product development. These are the conditions of success that the system mustmeet.
3. A conceptual design for a system to accomplish the business goal

and meet the performance criteria. The system design is composed of people, process, and technology. The conceptual designis the embodiment of the strategy being used to attain the goal.
4. A definition of the project objectives that are needed to build thesystem. The objectives are the things that must be built to create
the system outlined in the conceptual design.
5. A cost-benefit analysis that verifies that the project is worth carry-ing out. The senior business executive or management group
who is responsible for accomplishing the business goal that thesystem will address must confirm that this analysis is valid.
In formulating supply chain improvement projects, it is a far better
approach to successfully carry out a sequence of small steps than toattempt to make a great leap forward and risk falling short. In an approachthat involves taking a sequence of smaller steps, the stakes at each step
are modest and the work is more manageable so success is easier toachieve. In the approach of taking a great leap forward, the stakes are
high—the work is enormous, success is harder to achieve, and the costof failure is high.
206

CHAPTER 7

Developing Supply Chain
Systems
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Understand the basics of how to organize and run a project
to design and build a new supply chain system• Appreciate some useful techniques for investigating supply
chain processes and documenting the findings• See how to flesh out a conceptual system design and produce detailed system specifications• Understand how to create accurate project plans andbudgets based on the detailed system specifications• Evaluate progress on projects and recognize problems as
they emerge

fter a company defines its supply chain strategy and sets the performance targets for the markets it serves, the next step is to develop thesystems needed to implement the strategy. Often existing systems
need to be enhanced and new systems need to be built. This chapter
presents a process to follow to create the detailed system designs and tobuild those systems.
An organization will frequently employ the help of consultants andsoftware vendors to do this work. However, no company can delegate
the work entirely to outsiders and expect that their best interests will beA207

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

served. Companies that do not stay actively involved in this work put
themselves in a very vulnerable position where they “depend on thekindness of strangers. . .” as the character Blanche DuBois said in the play
A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams, Tennessee, 1947, A Streetcar Named
Desire, New York, NY:Viking Penguin).

Organizing the Systems Development Project
In Chapter 5 a three-step process to create new systems was introduced.
The three steps in this process are: define; design; and build. The firststep (define) is also discussed in that chapter. This chapter presents thelast two steps in the process. Use this three-step process to organize theproject. Each step has a certain amount of time and budget that shouldbe allocated to it. Organize and run the project so that the work thatneeds to be done in each step is done within the boundaries of thesetime and budget limits.
There is a short list of six principles that should be used to run aproject. If these six principles are consistently applied, the probability ofsuccess for the project is very high. If any one of these principles is ignored
then special precautions must be taken to compensate for that. If two or
more principles are violated, then the project is almost sure to fail.
1. Every project needs a full-time leader with overall responsibility andthe appropriate authority (the project leader).
There must be a single person who is responsible for the project’s
success and totally focused on getting the job done. This person
must also have the authority to make decisions and act. It is goodto have a steering committee or management oversight group inplace that the project leader reports to, but a committee cannot
make decisions in a timely manner. If there is no one person in thisrole, then the project progress and cost will reflect that. Progress will
be slow or nonexistent and costs will be high.
208Developing Supply Chain Systems

2. Define a set of measurable and nonoverlapping objectives that are nec-

essary and sufficient to accomplish the project goal or mission.
It is crucial that you define clear project objectives so that thepeople who are assigned the responsibility to achieve these objectives know what is expected of them. It is very important that theboundaries of these objectives do not overlap because if they do,
the overlap will cause confusion and conflict between the teams
assigned to achieve these overlapping objectives.
Make sure that each objective is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of the project goal. Do not pursue an objective justbecause it seems like a good idea. Finally, you must be able to saythat if each objective is achieved, then the mission or goal has
been accomplished. The objectives must cover everything thatneeds to happen.
3. Assign project objectives to teams of two to seven people with hands-on

team leaders and the appropriate mix of business and technical skills.
Put together a project team of two to seven people who in yourjudgment have among them the necessary business and technicalskills and experience to address the issues that will arise in achieving
the objectives you delegate to them. A team is a group of people
with complementary skills who organize themselves so that all
members can contribute their strengths and not be penalized fortheir weaknesses.
Each member of the team concentrates on the aspects of designing and building the system that they are good at and/or mostinterested in. For the most part, no one is required to do things they
are not interested in or not good at.Within a team, the operative
word is “we,” not “me.” The whole team is rewarded for successes

209

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

and takes responsibility for mistakes. Singling out superstars or
scapegoats undermines team morale and performance.
4. Tell the teams WHAT to do but not HOW to do it.

AM
FL
Y

Point a project team in the right direction by giving them a welldefined project goal and clearly identify the project objectives
that they are responsible for. The objectives define the things thatthey must do to be successful. The project goal and the objectives
that are delegated to a team define the game that you want thatteam to play. The team itself must then go through the process ofcreating their plan to achieve the objectives that you have laid out
for them.

TE

General Patton said, “Tell people what you want but don’t tellthem how to do it—you will be surprised by their resourcefulness in accomplishing their tasks.” The teams can make changes
or additions to the objectives they are given as long as the project
leader agrees that the modified objectives are still necessary andsufficient to accomplish the project goal.
5. Break project work into tasks that are each a week or less in durationand produce something of value to the business every 30 to 90 days.
Encourage project teams to structure their project plans so that
individual tasks are a week or less in duration. Each task must havea well-defined deliverable. Track these tasks as either started,
delayed, or finished. Do not fall into the trap of tracking tasks bytheir percentage of completion as it is unclear what “percent
complete” really means. What matters is whether the task deliverable has been produced and if not, when it will be produced.
The project leader must be able to track progress at the task levelof detail in order to understand what is really going on and to210

Developing Supply Chain Systems

keep accurate projections of the time to complete and the costto complete for each of the project’s objectives.
Multi-week tasks make progress hard to measure and they are theones that will cause cost overruns and confusion. Multi-week tasks
being reported by the percent complete method usually seem to
be making good progress and then in the last week they suddenly
turn out to be nowhere near completion and need several more
weeks to complete. To avoid this problem, break big tasks into a
set of sub-tasks that take a week or less to complete.
These tasks should combine to produce something that is of value
to the business every 30 to 90 days. This provides the opportunity
for the business to verify that the project is on the right track. It
also provides deliverables that the business can start to use even
before the entire project is complete and begin recouping thecost of the project.
6. Every project needs project office staff to work with the project leader

and team leaders to update plans and budgets.
The project plan and budget are analogous to the profit and loss
statements for a business. They must be updated continuously
and accurately in order to provide the people running the projectwith the information they need to make good decisions. There is
a common but misguided notion that the project leader andteam leaders should be the ones who keep the plans updated.
This is analogous to the idea that the president of a company andits managers should spend their time keeping the company’sbooks. The project leader and the team leaders are responsible
for creating the initial plan and budget, but after that, they must
devote their full energies to making the plan a reality.

211

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

Just as there is an accounting department to keep the company’sbooks, there needs to be a project office group that keeps the
project’s plans and budgets. The project office staff reports to theproject leader and they work with the team leaders on a weekly
basis to review and update the plans and budgets associated witheach team’s objectives. In this way the project leader can accurately monitor project progress and the team leaders are able tofocus on running their teams and not filling out reports.
TIPS & TECHNIQUES

Organizing andRunning Projects
Principles for Running Projects
Every project needs a full-time leader with overall responsibility
and authority.
Define a set of measurable and nonoverlapping objectives thatare necessary and sufficient to accomplish the project goal or
mission.
Assign project objectives to teams of two to seven people withhands-on team leaders and the appropriate mix of businessand technical skills.
Tell the teams WHAT to do but not HOW to do it.
Break project work into tasks that are each a week or less induration and produce something of value to the businessevery 30 to 90 days.
Provide project office staff to work with the project leader andteam leaders to update plans and budgets.

212

Developing Supply Chain Systems

Designing Supply Chain Systems
The purpose of the design step is to flesh out the conceptual systemdesign and create the detailed system specifications. This step also creates
the detailed project plan and budget needed to build the system. This iswhere the people who will work on the project get to take a look atwhat senior management wants and figure out how they will do it. This
is where adjustments and refinements are made to the project objectives
as the people who have to build the system consider the realities of thejob before them.
By the end of the design step it is usually possible to predict thesuccess or failure of the project. If the people on the project finish thisphase with a clear set of system design specifications and confidence intheir ability to build a system to these specifications, then the projectwill succeed. If the opposite occurs, if the design specifications are vague,
incomplete, or hard to understand and if people are ambivalent or uneasy
about their chances for success, then the project will fail.
The phase begins with the project leader reviewing the project goal,
the conceptual system design, and the objectives with the project workgroup. The work group is composed of business and technical people
who have the necessary mix of business and technical skills and experience needed to do the detailed system design. It is important for thepeople to understand senior management’s intentions and the project’sgoal. Specific issues relating to the project objectives and budget can beinvestigated during this phase. If necessary, adjustments can be made inlight of the findings that come out of this phase.
Once the people on the project work group understand the goal
and the objectives, they participate with the project leader to lay out adetailed plan for the work in this phase. There are two main things thatneed to be done in the design phase:213

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

1. Create detailed process flow diagrams for the new system;
2. Build and test the system prototype (i.e., the user interface andthe technical architecture).
Use the technique called “time boxing” to lay out a work schedule andget things done according to that schedule. Divvy up the time allottedto the total design step among the two major design activities. Breakeach activity into a set of tasks. Then give each task the time needed to
do a competent job. Avoid the temptation to spend extra time doingexcessive amounts of analysis and checking and re-checking the resultsthat come out of each activity.
The design step should take somewhere from one to three months
to complete. For the most part, work on each of these two activities canproceed simultaneously or “in parallel.” In some cases the work can bedone in less than one month. In no case is it wise to let the work takelonger than three months. If the design work takes longer than threemonths, that indicates a lack of clear focus or a lack of effective organization (or both) on the project.

Supply Chain Process Mapping
The project team should review the system performance criteria as
described in the define phase. The criteria will be some mix of performance targets from the four categories:
1. Customer Service
2. Internal Efficiency
3. Demand Flexibility
4. Product Development

Before starting to sketch out the detailed process flows of the new system, the project leader needs to lead people on the project teams in brainstorming exercises on ways to meet these criteria. The project leader
214

Developing Supply Chain Systems

needs to encourage a free flow of ideas and help the project group to
avoid falling into the trap of premature criticism and dwelling on why
things cannot be done. Focus instead on how things might be done.
Generate as many ideas as possible for how to meet these performance
criteria. These ideas are the raw material to be worked with and blended
together to create the designs for the new system process flows.

System Prototyping to Design New Systems
Once new process flows have been designed, system prototyping is atechnique to use to design a new system that will effectively support
these new processes. The process decomposition diagrams provide theprocessing logic and sequences to be used and indicate the kinds andvolumes of data that the new system needs to handle.
There are two kinds of system prototypes: user interface prototypes
and technical architecture prototypes. An analogy is to think of designinga building. If you were designing a building you would create two kindsof designs. The first is the floor plan and façade of the building to showwhat the building will look like. The second kind is the design of thestructural, electrical, and plumbing components needed to support the
specified floor plan and façade. This design shows how the building will
be built.
When designing systems, the user interface can be thought of as thefloor plan and façade because it shows what the system will look likeand how a person would move through the system. The equivalent of
the structural engineering for a building is the technical architecture ofa system—the hardware, operating system, and database software thatwill be used to support the user interface.
Both the user interface and the technical architecture designs are
created in parallel. It is an iterative process that makes trade-offs
between the user interface, the system functionality, and the underlying
215

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

technical architecture. The aim is to find an overall design that provides
a good balance between system functionality and ease of use. Look forways to minimize the complexity of the underlying technical architecture.
The key is to find ways to use relatively simple technical architecturesto creatively support a wide variety of user interfaces and system features.

Prototype the User Inter face for the System
Much has been written and said about the design of user interfaces forcomputer systems. One of the most important concepts is that the userinterface should be “intuitively obvious.” This means that a person who

IN THE REAL WORLD

Network Services Co.
Web Site User Interface
HOME PAGE

Order
Entry

Company
Overview

MemberAccessCustomer
AccessOrders
Login

Reports
Login

OrdersMenu

Reports
Menu

Select
Items

Review
Order

Check
Out

Sales byLocation

Sales bySupplier

Supplier
AccessSales byVolumeThis screen map shows a partial layout of the Network Services web
site. The shaded screens are shown in greater detail with screen
layouts below.

216

Developing Supply Chain Systems

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
Network Services Home Page
This is the home page for the Network Services site (www.nsconline.com). Different user options are selected by clicking on the buttons shown along the left-hand side of the screen.

Reports Menu
Customers can select the report they want and set report parameters such as location, supplier, and time period.

217

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
Data Display Screen
The resulting report can be displayed either on screen or downloaded to a spreadsheet on the customer’s PC.

already knows how to do the activity that the computer system isdesigned to support should find that they can figure out the basics ofusing the new computer system in about 20 minutes of playing aroundwith the system and trying things. The better a system interface design,
the less the amount of training that is needed to teach a person to use it.
Create a prototype of the user interface based on the work done todefine the process flows. The process decomposition diagrams will tell
you what activities are performed in what sequence and what data areneeded to support these activities. Design sequences of computer
screens that map closely to the process flows and that allow the user tomanipulate the data involved in these processes.

218

Developing Supply Chain Systems

Prototype the Technical Architecture for the System
As the system user interface design is progressing, a parallel design effort
is underway to select and test the technical components that will be
used to build the system. Decisions should be made on the computer
hardware and software to be used. The database and other packages mustbe specified and a programming language chosen if there is custom
coding to be done. All of these components must be assembled in a test
environment and tried out to see if they work as advertised. Connect
the pieces and make sure they actually do work the way the vendors said
they would.
Until a given technical component has been in use for at least two
years, it is not wise to take any published performance statistics at facevalue. There will not be a wide enough base of experience with thecomponent to provide a well-balanced assessment and it will be unclear
just how the performance statistics were derived. Therefore the technicalpeople on a design team must do their own verification that all thecomponents will work together. This means that various performance
tests are devised and run to generate benchmarking data. The technicaldesign team needs to make changes in the component selection or eventhe technical architecture design if certain components prove to beincapable of performing as desired.
The database package must be installed on the hardware and operating system platform on which it is intended to run. Any packaged
application software that will be used must be installed. Then test dataneeds to be loaded into the database and performance trials conducted
to test the operation of the whole architecture. Simple code should be
written to pass data from one component to the next to test out thedata interfaces and the speed of LAN, WAN, and Internet connections.
By the end of the prototyping activities, the technical architecture must
be shown to perform up to the requirements of the new system that it
219

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

will support. If a prototype cannot be created that performs well, thenthere is no sense in trying to build a production version of the systemusing this same technical architecture.

The System Design Process

TE

AM
FL
Y

The first part of the design phase should be spent in sessions where thebusiness and technical people explore different process designs. Here iswhere people should “think outside of the box” and generate as manyideas as possible. The team then selects the most useful ideas and fits them
together to form a coherent and detailed map of how work will be organized and how things will be done in the new business process flow.
Once the process flows have been sketched out, then the design sessions can begin to focus on how technology will be used to support thisprocess. The design team starts to define how people in the process willinteract with the technology supporting the process. Look for ways toautomate the rote and repetitive work and look for ways to empower
the problem solving and decision making tasks. People usually don’t liketo do the rote and repetitive work because it is boring but they do likedoing problem solving and decision making work because it is creativeand involves interaction with others.
Often the mistake is made of trying to have computers do the
problem solving and decision-making work. Remember that people are
the spark that animates a business process, not computers. Design systems that will be a rewarding experience for people. Design systems
where people are in control and not computers. Empower people withaccess to information so that they can solve problems faster and makebetter decisions. Have computers do the rote and repetitive work. That’s
what computers do well.
If the decision is made to use a packaged software application, thenthat package should be brought in and installed in a test environment.
220

Developing Supply Chain Systems

Realistic usage scenarios need to be scripted out. The databases used by
the package need to be loaded with a sampling of real data. People whowill both use and support the package then need to evaluate it byworking through the usage scenarios.

Create the Detailed Project Plan
Toward the end of the design phase, as the detailed design specifications
are produced, everyone involved will have a clear idea of the work theyneed to do and how long this will take in the build phase. The project
leader is now able to oversee the creation of a detailed project plan andbudget for building the system. Project teams are assigned responsibility
for specific objectives and the people on these teams can then lay out
the sequence of tasks they will perform to achieve each objective
assigned to them. Working with project office staff, each team lays out
the plan for their work. Each task has time and resource requirements
assigned to it so a cost for each task can be calculated.
Respect the six principles for running projects. The project leader
should let each team define how they will do their work and how longit will take. The project leader should challenge the teams to set ambitious but achievable time frames. Teams should also be encouraged tobreak their work into discrete tasks that take one week or less because
the week is the standard unit of time in business and teams must strive
to accomplish something of measurable value each week. If a certain
task takes longer than a week then it is probably composed of sub-tasks.
Apply the technique of process decomposition to identify these subtasks. A project plan that clearly lays out for every person what they are
expected to accomplish every week is a valuable tool for coordinating
and monitoring the work of building the system. A plan at this level ofdetail is also the best way to arrive at an accurate and realistic projectbudget for the build phase.
221

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

As the project teams are each creating their specific task plans toachieve the objectives assigned to them, the project leader is combining
these plans into the overall project plan. In a process that is somewhat
analogous to the manner in which a general plans a campaign, the project
leader plans the sequence of activities that will lead to the successful
construction and roll out of the system that the design phase has specified.
Segment the project plan by objective. Devote one section of the
project plan to each objective. The project leader determines the necessary sequence for achieving the project objectives and arranges the
project plan to reflect this. The project teams assigned to each objective
have already created detailed plans for their work. Insert the project teams’plans into the section of the project plan related to their objectives.
Look for opportunities to run activities in parallel. The more workthat can be done simultaneously, the more flexible the project will be.
When activities are run in sequence, a delay in one activity causes a ripple effect that delays all the other activities queued up behind it.When
activities are run in parallel, a delay in one does not delay the others.
Activities need to create deliverables that come together and combine
at the end to achieve the objective.
The key point here is that running in parallel allows you to finish
one activity and then shift resources over to help out on another activity
that is delayed. Delays are inevitable on a project. A plan that does notaccount for delays and provide the flexibility needed to effectively
respond to them is a plan whose timetable and budget will quickly bethrown into disarray and confusion, which bring with them the probability of failure.

Create the Detailed Project Budget
Project plans and budgets are just two sides of the same coin. Plans
show the time, people, and material needed to get things done and222

Developing Supply Chain Systems

budgets show the cost of the people and material over the time frames
shown in the plans. Once the project plan is in place, a detailed projectbudget can be derived.
Estimate the labor cost for each task shown on the plan. Add in costof equipment such computers, software, and so on. Then add in othercosts as needed for items such as travel, lodging, and entertainment.
These costs all directly relate to the task sequence shown on the projectplan. If the project tasks are adjusted, then the budget should also be
adjusted. The total of these costs is the cost of the project.

The Decision to Proceed . . . or Not to Proceed
At the end of the design phase, the detailed system design and detailed
project plan and budget are presented to the senior management steeringcommittee or the executive sponsor of the project. If there are doubts
about the viability of the project or if the revised budget has gotten too
big, now is the time to reduce the scope of the project or cancel it altogether. At this point only 20 percent to 40 percent of the total project
cost will have been incurred. The business has yet to commit the major
effort on the project.
A sober assessment of the system design and its prospects for successis the order of the day. Once the project moves into the build phase, it will
be very hard to make significant design changes without negative impact
on the budget, the completion date, and the organization of the project.
Once into the build phase, all effort must be focused on building the systemas specified and responding to the day-to-day issues that arise in doing so.
There cannot be continuing questions and changes in the basic design ofthe system without throwing the whole project into confusion.
It is all too common for companies to run the design phase as a poorly defined research project. Much time is spent in detailed analysis ofwhat already exists but only sketchy design work is done on the specifics
223

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Managementof what the new system will be. Debates break out on many aspects ofthe design of the new system but no clear answers are agreed upon.
Crucial design questions are deferred to the build phase. Senior managers
who conceived of the project in the define phase may still be enthusiastic about the project but the people who will actually have to build thesystem are starting to have doubts and disillusionment is setting in.
The design phase is the opportunity for a company to reduce therisk on a project before committing large amounts of time and money
to it. The more detailed the design specifications, the better the chances
for building the system on time and on budget. The broader the understanding of and support for the system among both business and technical people, the greater the likelihood that the system will be usedeffectively and produce the desired results.
At the end of the design phase the executive sponsor and the project
leader must pause and take stock of the project. Is there an air of understanding and confidence among the people on the project? Are wegood to go? Is the project ready for lift-off? The answers will be evident
for those who want to hear them.
If the design phase has not produced clear design specifications, if
the strategic design guidelines have been ignored, if people on the project
team are not confident of their abilities, then there will be no success.
The project leader can only fail in these situations no matter how heroic
the use of leadership skills. There is a 75 percent failure rate on IT system development projects and this is not because we are incapable aspeople. It is because we make fundamental mistakes in our systemdesigns and our plans for building them.

The Build Phase
This is the “Go For It!!!” phase. Stick to your aim and resist temptations
to change direction. Keep your focus and build the momentum you224

Developing Supply Chain Systems

need to achieve the project objectives within the time boxes called forin the project plan. Activity must be tightly focused on the completionof specific sequences of tasks. This is the step where good design andplanning pay off handsomely.
In this phase the project effort really ramps up. The full complementof people is brought on to fill out the project teams. Because of this,the weekly cost or “burn rate” on the project also rises significantly inthe build phase. So, unlike the previous two phases, the cost of false starts
and wrong turns now adds up very quickly.

The Project Of ficeOnce the initial project plan is in place and the project enters the build
phase, the project leader and the team leaders will be fully engaged inleading the project. Neither the project leader nor the team leaders will
have time to do this work on their own if they are doing a good job ofleading the project. However, if the project office work is not done, theproject plan and budget will quickly become out of date and will cease
to be the powerful coordinating and decision-making tools that theywould otherwise be. The project leader and the team leaders will thenbe reduced to running the project “by the seat of their pants” and that
leads to trouble.
Maintaining project plans and budgets is a full-time job and needs tobe recognized as such in order to be successful. The project leader is analogous to the president of a company and the project office is like theaccounting department. The president does not have time to keep thecompany’s books.There are far too many other things the president needs
to do to lead the company. The accounting people keep the company
books up to date so the president knows where the company stands.
Since the real world never happens exactly according to plan, theproject plan must be constantly updated and adjusted to reflect reality.
225

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The plan is the map of where the project is going and the progress
made to date. If this map does not accurately reflect reality then thepeople on the project will lose track of where they are.
There is a pervasive tendency for people to hide bad news such as
delays and cost overruns. Unless the project leader takes active steps tocounter this tendency, the project will run into trouble. People need to seethat they will not be penalized for reporting bad news. On the contrary,
they must be shown that by reporting delays and potential cost overruns
as soon as they perceive them, they can improve their chances of success.
Early reporting gives everyone more time to respond effectively.
People need to understand that the project office staff are there to help
them keep track of what is really going on and make timely decisions.
Indeed, one of the best ways to get into trouble is to hide bad news
because when the truth finally does come out, there is usually very little
if any time to respond effectively to the situation.

System Test and Roll Out
The first step in rolling a system from development into production is to
do a system test with all the system components in place. If competentload and volume testing was done on the system prototype during thedesign phase, then there will be no surprises about whether or not thesystem technically works and can handle the work load expected of it.
The purpose of system testing will be to work through a series of test
scripts that subject the system to the kind of uses it is designed for andexercise various features and logic of the system. Some embarrassing
logic mistakes may well emerge during system test. This is OK. That iswhat system test is for—to flush out and fix these kinds of errors before
the system goes into beta test.
The next step is the beta test of the system with a pilot group ofbusiness users. This pilot group of users should have been involved in226

Developing Supply Chain Systems

some way in the design phase of the project. In this way they will
already have an understanding and acceptance of the need for and benefits of the new system. Nonetheless, many minor adjustments willneed to be made to the system architecture and to the user interface
during the beta test. The people who operate the system architecture
will need to tweak different operating parameters to get the best
response time and stability from the system. The people who designed
the user interface will need to sit with the pilot group of business users
and listen to their ideas for improvements.
The business user who works with a system day in and day out will
have a different perspective on the system’s features than the people who
designed and built the system. Minor inconveniences in the system’s
operation can become major irritants to the people who have to use
the system day after day. These minor inconveniences should be fixed.
As business people in the pilot group test the system and make suggestions for adjustments, the rough edges are smoothed off. In this process,advocates for the system will emerge from among the pilot group. They
will feel a personal connection to the success of the system because thesystem will take on a look and feel that is influenced by their suggestions.
These are the people who will sell the benefits of the system to the restof the company and who will often be the ones who train their coworkers in the use of the system.
When the system first goes into production the roll out for a big
system (one that affects more than one area of the business or many
people in a single area) may last a while, from six months to a year.
There is not a lot of new development going on during this time, butthere is a steady stream of minor enhancements and bug fixes. The project team can be slimmed down but the project leader needs to stay
involved during this time to facilitate the roll out and respond quickly
if some unexpected obstacle arises.

227

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

IN THE REAL WORLDIn the fall of 1999 Network Services Company
reviewed and updated its strategic plan. The plan called forthe company to build the first version of its “web-enabled
supply chain” in 2000. These systems have been enhanced
and new features added since then as market needs have
evolved.
Through its strategic planning process, Network saw that the biggest
benefit to be gained was from using Internet technology to electronically connect all of the different computer systems of its member
companies. This would allow passing files such as purchase orders,invoices, and product masters quickly and accurately between customers, members, and manufacturers. With a system such as this,Network would be able to plug into whatever electronic trading networks were evolving in the markets it served. The system to connect
Network with its members, customers, and manufacturers was named“NetLink-NSC™.”
The second opportunity the company saw and acted on was tomake sales history data available via its web site. Since Network is
the hub of the NetLink-NSC™ system, a by-product is that Network
gathers a lot of valuable information that can be used by customers,
members, and manufacturers. The company decided to build a data
warehouse that could be accessed through report generation
screens on its web site.
Many of Network’s customers already had or were building their own
order entry systems and they wanted to send the company purchase orders directly from their systems using either EDI or theInternet. NetLink-NSC™ would allow Network to do that. For thosecustomers that wanted to enter orders over the web, Network decided
to lease the use of a web-based order entry package from a supply
chain service provider named Tibersoft.

228

Developing Supply Chain Systems

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)As Network’s CIO, I was given the responsibility for building thise-business systems infrastructure. It was very important to develop theinfrastructure quickly and cost effectively so I used the time-boxing
guidelines suggested in the define-design-build process. A team ofbusiness and technical people was assembled and they identified thecompany’s most pressing business issues and ideas for how technology could help. These ideas were translated into a conceptual
system design (see Exhibit 6.3 in Chapter 6). Within six weeks, thedefine phase was complete. The conceptual design and the proposed
budget to develop this infrastructure were presented to the board of
directors. They gave their approval to proceed with development.
Even before the define phase was finished, work began on a design
and build sequence to produce a beta test version of the data warehouse that stored sales history data. This was completed quickly
and provided the business with a valuable tool as well as proof thatthe technical architecture was viable. It also gave everyone a clear
indication that the system development effort was off to a goodstart and would live up to expectations.
A select group of consultants was brought in to work with company
IT staff. Four project teams were created—one team to design andbuild each of the four components of the e-business infrastructure.
Two of the project team leaders were from the Network IT staff and
two were consultants. There was also a two-person project officeteam headed by one of Network’s IT managers.
The hardware and software components chosen for the systems
architecture were assembled and tested out by the teams thatwould use them. Data was passed between the components tomake sure they could work together. Response times were tested
under different data volumes to verify that the system could handle
the expected amounts of data. When testing was finished, we hada solid design and there wasn’t any talk of, “we’ll figure this out
after we get into the build phase . . . ”

229

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
As each team finished the design phase of their work, they were well
positioned to launch into their build phase. Each team had a clear
set of design specifications and they had been able to test and verify
that the hardware and software they were going to use would meettheir expectations. Because of this it was possible for each teamleader to work with the project office manager to create very accurate project plans and budgets for their work in the build phase.

AM
FL
Y

The first versions of all the system components were finished withinnine months and demonstrated to member companies and suppliers
at the Network annual trade show. The systems were well received
by Network members and some members asked if they could use
these systems to support their own local business as well as tohandle national account customers. So a set of enhancements to
NetLink-NSC™ and the data warehouse were quickly designed andbuilt to let members use them for their local customers. In the last
three months of 2000 the project team worked with Network members to roll out version 1.0 of these systems.

TE

At the end of 2000 Network assessed its business situation and themarket conditions. It defined a set of major enhancements to add
to the systems it had just rolled out. These enhancements wereagain designed and built within nine months and demonstrated in
the fall at the annual trade show. Exhibit 7.1 shows the time boxing
sequence that was used on the project.
Every Friday afternoon the team leaders and I met to discuss the
project. We spent several hours and reviewed the progress and theissues that each team was encountering. The project office provided accurate and updated plans and budgets for these meetings. We
could all see the most current estimate of time and cost to finish
each objective. We could see if work on an objective threatened topush beyond its time box or if it was likely to overrun its budget.

230

Developing Supply Chain Systems

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)EXHIBIT 7.1

Network Services E-Business System
Development Sequence

The development sequence was focused and tightly time-boxed. Work ran inparallel during the design and build phases requiring good planning andcoordination. Version 1.0 of e-business systems infrastructure was createdin nine months. Based on positive reception and feedback from version 1.0,
enhancements for version 1.1 were created. Further assessment of business needs led to definition of next round of major enhancements that created version 2.0 of the e-business infrastructure.

231

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

I N THE R EAL WORLD (CONTINUED)
In the build phase especially, the project teams were at their highest staffing levels so the project “burn rate” was also at its highest
level. Small delays and little misunderstandings or scope changes
could quickly balloon into big problems and cost overruns. Having
regular weekly review sessions backed up by current and accurate
project plans showed me early on where problems were developing.
This way I knew when and where I needed to get personally involved
to keep things moving.

Chapter Summary
Design Step Deliverables
1. A detailed design for the business process flow of the system. Also,

agreement among the people who will have to work with the system that it will meet the performance criteria expected of it.
2. A system prototype that specifies both the technical architecture

and the user interface. This technical architecture must be shown
to be capable of handling the data volumes and user demands
that are expected. There must be a complete set of screen layouts, report formats, and specifications for all aspects of the userinterface.
3. There must be a detailed project plan and budget that accuratelyreflects the time, cost, and resources needed to build the system.

Build Step Deliverables
1. A working system that matches the design specifications andmeets performance criteria. The building of the system should
be scheduled so that there is something of value delivered to the232Developing Supply Chain Systems

business every 30 to 90 days. This means that certain pieces of thesystem must be finished and put into use before the entire system
is completed.
2. A complete and updated set of technical design documents. The

design documentation is analogous to the wiring diagrams andstructural plans of a building.
3. A complete set of operating instructions. The people who operate

and maintain a system are different from the people who build
systems. The people who operate a system need to know how tobring the system up, bring it down, do performance tuning, anddo troubleshooting and operating maintenance.

233

CHAPTER 8

The Promise of theReal-Time Supply Chain
After reading this chapter you will be able to• Appreciate the “always-on” connection and what it means• Assess the profit potential inherent in the self-adjusting
feedback loop

• Explore how the power of the self-adjusting feedback loop
can be harnessed to drive your supply chain• Discuss the concept of emergent systems
he pace of business change and innovation is both exciting andrelentless. Over the next decade innovative companies in different
market segments will learn to design and deploy their supply
chains to improve their competitive position in the markets they serve.
They will create supply chains that enable them to develop and deliverproducts and provide levels of service at price points that their competitors cannot match.
We all sense that something profound has happened in the last ten
years or so. The Internet is a part of it, but it is not only about theInternet.We learned that in the “dot com” bubble of the late 1990s andearly 2000s. There is something more than just the Internet going on
here.

T

235

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

The Star t of Something Big
As a historical analogy, consider what happened some 200 years ago at
the beginning of an age that came to be known as the Industrial Age.
The people of the time sensed that a powerful potential had beenreleased by the invention and spread of the steam engine.
The steam engine for the first time provided a movable source ofpower that could be generated on demand and efficiently harnessed toperform a wide variety of tasks. The Industrial Age was not so muchabout the steam engine as it was about the things that could be done
and were done with the power that the steam engine made available.
Once it was born, the Industrial Age went on to outgrow the steam
engine as it evolved more advanced engine technologies such as internal combustion, the jet, the electric motor, and atomic power.
The rise and spread of the Internet has created for the first time a
global, multi-directional communications network that is “always-on.”
The cost of connecting to this network is so cheap that there is no needfor companies to save money by staying off line and only connecting
periodically. The normal state for companies is transitioning from being
off line and unconnected to one of being on line and connected.
As more and more companies use the Internet and other communications networks to create always-on connections with each other,
they will find ways to share data that enable them to better coordinate
their interactions. They will also learn faster and adapt to changing conditions faster. These capabilities will clearly result in efficiencies that canbe turned into business profits.
The always-on connection is a new light that sheds steady illumination on a landscape that had before been seen only in periodic snapshots.
We are experiencing something similar to seeing a sequence of still
photos turn into a moving picture. As more pictures are taken at shorter
intervals, you cease to see a sequence of still photos and instead come236

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

to see a continuous, moving image. This continuous, moving image iswhat we see as we move from the snapshot or batch-time world into
the real-time world.
Supply chain management is a process of coordination between
companies. Those companies that learn to coordinate in real-time will
become incrementally more and more efficient. They will become more
profitable and quicker to see new opportunities than their competitors
who are still working in a batch-time world of snapshot pictures.

The Profit Potential of the Self-Adjusting
Feedback Loop
The self-adjusting feedback loop is a very useful phenomena. An example
is the cruise control in an automobile. The cruise control constantly
reads the vehicle’s actual speed and compares that to the speed it was set
for. It responds to bring the actual speed in line with the desired speed.
It causes the engine to either accelerate or decelerate. The cruise control’s goal is to achieve and maintain the desired speed. As the vehicle
travels down the highway it continuously monitors speed and operates
the engine to achieve its goal.
Other examples of a self-adjusting feedback loop at work are a thermostat that controls the temperature in a room, or a guided missile thatzeros in on a heat source or a radar emission source. Self-adjusting feedback loops use negative feedback to continuously correct their behavior.
Negative feedback occurs when a system compares its current state withits desired state (or goal) and takes corrective action to move it in a
direction that will minimize the difference between the two states. A
continuous stream of negative feedback guides a system through achanging environment toward its goal.
Companies can learn to work together to achieve supply chain performance targets that are profitable to all of them. They can learn to237

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

constantly adjust their behavior day after day, hour by hour to respondto events and continue to steer toward their performance targets. The
bullwhip effect can be controlled by the introduction of negative feedback to dampen down the wild demand swings that otherwise result.
The opportunity now exists to leverage the power of the selfadjusting feedback loop across entire supply chains. Real-time data sharing and close coordination between companies can be employed todeliver operating efficiencies that result in significant profits over time.
The result of these continuous incremental adjustments to supply chain
operations is analogous to the growth of capital over time due to themiracle of compound interest.

Harnessing the Feedback Loop to the Supply Chain
How can the power of the self-adjusting feedback loop be brought tobear in a supply chain? The answer is beginning to appear. As companies
link up using always-on communication networks to conduct businesswith each other, they begin to automatically collect useful data as a byproduct of their interactions: electronic purchase orders, order status,order receipts, invoices, and payment status. It is no longer a huge administrative chore to regularly track performance in the areas of customer
service, internal efficiency, demand flexibility, and product development.
Customers are starting to use supply chain “report cards” to grade
the performance of their suppliers. The report cards are more accurate
and more frequently produced than was previously possible. The next
step is for companies to move beyond the use of these report cards as
merely convenient tools for beating up their suppliers. The opportunity exists for customers and suppliers to use this data to work together tomeet mutually beneficial performance targets. Companies can selectperformance targets that will generate quantifiable benefits and profits
to reward them for the effort needed to achieve the targets.

238

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

Either one dominant company can set the performance targets orgroups of companies can negotiate among themselves to set targets.
The important thing is that all participating companies in a supply
chain believe the targets are achievable and that when they are achieved
there will be rewards as a result. The desire to receive these rewards iswhat brings the self-adjusting feedback loop into being.
The feedback loop happens when peoples’ interactions with eachother are cast in the form of a game whose object is to achieve the performance targets. If companies and people in a supply chain have realtime access to the data they need then they will steer toward their targets.
If they are rewarded when they achieve their targets then they willlearn to hit these targets more often than not. The profit potential of
negative feedback and the self-adjusting supply chain is now unleashed.

Playing the Game of Supply Chain Management
Human beings are social creatures who love to play games.This is a goodthing because through playing games we constantly learn and improve
our skills and our performance. Companies such as Wal-Mart and Delland their supply chain partners have in many ways begun to create an
evolving game out of managing their supply chains. They have steadilylearned and developed supply chains that are better than those of theircompetitors and that are clearly business advantages for them.
There are only a few things required to start a game. In his book,
The Great Game of Business, Jack Stack lays out the four conditions thatare needed (Stack, Jack, 1992, The Great Game of Business, New York,
NY: Currency/Doubleday). They are:
1. People must understand the rules of the game and how it is played.

They must know what is fair and what is not fair and how toscore points.

239

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

2. People must be able to pick the roles or positions they want toplay in the game. They also need to get the training and experience necessary to keep developing the skills they need to succeedin their positions.
3. All players must know what the score is at all times. They needto know if they are winning or losing and they need to see theresults of their actions.
4. All players must have a personal stake in the outcome of the

AM
FL
Y

game. There must be some important reward, either monetary or
psychological, that provides a reason for each player to strive to
succeed.

TE

Basically, the game of supply chain management is a relatively simple game, as is soccer or basketball.Which is not to say that any of thesegames can be mastered without years of practice and play. The maintechniques and operations of supply chain management are wellenough understood to be taught to a wide range of people in different
supply chain positions (see Chapters 2 and 3). The Internet is the wayfor everyone to know the score at all times and see the results of theiractions. Profits generated by operating efficiencies provide people withrewards and the reason to strive to succeed.
In supply chain management, everyone can acquire and install technology so technology alone cannot constitute a significant competitive
advantage. The advantage lies in the way the game is played. Let’s goback to the example of Alexander the Great (see Chapter 1). His army
did not have any technology that was not also possessed by his opponents. In fact Alexander deliberately used less technology. He simplified
his army’s operations and equipment in order to make it more mobile
and more efficient. His army could travel faster and lighter than thoseof his adversaries.

240

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

Advantage goes to those players who learn to use simple technology and simple tactics extremely well. Alexander’s soldiers were welltrained in how to use their technology and because of the simplicity of
their tactics, they could remember and use them effectively in the heatof the moment when it really counted. After all is said and done, success is often just a matter of consistent performance and making fewer
errors than your competition.

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT

Emergent behavior is what happens when aninterconnected system of relatively simple elements
begins to self-organize to form a more intelligent andmore adaptive higher-level system. Steven Johnson in his
book, Emergence—The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains,

Cities, and Software, explores the conditions that bringabout this phenomenon.
In an interview with Steven Johnson I posed six questions and asked
him to share his insights on a number of topics. These topics range
from what gives a system emergent characteristics to how companies
could organize their supply chains so as to encourage and benefit
from emergent behavior.
What is an “emergent system?” How is an emergent systemdifferent from an assembly line?

“The catchphrase that I sometimes use is that an emergent systemis ‘smarter’ than the sum of its parts. They tend to be systems
made up of many interacting agents, each of which is following relatively simple rules governing its encounters with other agents.
Somehow, out of all these local interactions, a higher-level, global

241

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
intelligence ‘emerges.’ The extraordinary thing about these systems
is that there’s no master planner or executive branch—the overall
group creates the intelligence and adaptability; it’s not something
passed down from the leadership. An ant colony is a great exampleof this: colonies manage to pull off extraordinary feats of resource
management and engineering and task allocation, all by following
remarkably simple rules of interaction, using a simple chemical language to communicate. There’s a queen ant in the colony, but she’s
only called that because she’s the chief reproductive engine for thecolony. She doesn’t have any actual command authority. The ordinary ants just do the thinking collectively, without a leader.
“A key difference between an emergent system and an assemblyline lies in the fluidity of the emergent system: randomness is a key
component of the way an ant colony will explore a given environment—take the random element out, and the colony gets much lessinteresting, much less capable of stumbling across new ideas.
Assembly lines are all about setting fixed patterns and eliminating
randomness; emergence is all about stumbling across new patterns
that work better than the old ones.”
You say that such systems are “bottom-up systems, not topdown.” These systems solve problems by drawing on massesof simple elements instead of relying on a single, intelligent“executive branch.” What does this mean for people who aretrying to design and build emergent systems?

“One of the central lessons, I think, is that emergent systems arealways slightly out of control. Their unpredictability is part of theircharm, and their power, but it can be threatening to engineers andplanners who have been trained to eliminate unpredictability at
every turn. Some of the systems that I’ve looked at combine emergent properties and evolutionary ones: the emergent system generates lots of new configurations and ideas, and then there’s a kind242

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
of natural selection that weeds out the bad ideas and encourages
the good ones. That’s largely what a designer of emergent systems
should think about doing: it’s closer to growing a garden than it is
to building a factory.”
What does it mean when you say that emergent systems display complex adaptive behavior?

“The complexity refers to the number of interacting parts, like thethousands of ants in a colony, or the pedestrians on a street in abusy city. Adaptive behavior is what happens when all those component parts create useful higher-level structures or patterns of
behavior with their group interactions, when they create something,usually unwittingly, that benefits the members of the group. Whenan ant colony determines the shortest route to a new source of foodand quickly assembles a line of ants to transport the food back to
the nest; when thousands of urbanites create a neighborhood witha distinct personality that helps organize and give shape to an otherwise overwhelming city, these are examples of adaptive behavior.”
What is negative feedback as opposed to positive feedback?
What role does negative feedback play in the ability of a system to exhibit adaptive behavior?

“Negative feedback is crucial, and it’s not at all negative in a valuejudgment sense. Positive feedback is what we generally mean when
we talk about feedback, as in the guitar effect that we first started
to hear as music in the 60s: music is played through a speaker,
which is picked up by a microphone, which then broadcasts it out
though the speaker, creating a sound that the microphone picks up,
and so on until you get a howling noise that sounds nothing like theoriginal music. So positive feedback is a kind of self-perpetuating,additive effect: plug output A into input B which is plugged into input
A. Negative feedback is what you use when you need to dampen
down a chain like this, when there’s a danger of a kind of runaway

243

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
effect, or when you’re trying to home in on a specific target. Thinkof a thermostat trying to reach a preset temperature: it samples theair, and if the air’s too cold, it turns the heat on, then samples itagain. Without negative feedback, the room would just keep getting
hotter, but the thermostat has been designed to turn the heat off
when the air reaches the target temperature. Ants use a comparable technique to achieve the right balance of task allocation throughout the colony: an individual ant who happens to be on foraging duty
will sample the number of ants also on foraging duty that she stumbles across over the course of an hour. If she encounters a certain
number, she’ll switch over to another task (nest building, say) inorder to keep the colony from becoming overrun with foragers.”
In your book you mention a designer who has proposed building
a learning network of traffic lights that will find an optimal
solution to continually changing traffic conditions. You observe
that, “You can conquer gridlock by making the grid itself
smart.” What is it that would make the grid smart? Is thisgrid an example of an emergent system?

“The idea proposed in the traffic model is not to take the traditional engineering, top-down approach and say: ‘Let’s look at the entire
city and figure out where all the problems are, and try to design theroads and the light system to eliminate the problems.’ The smart
grid approach is to give each light a local perspective with a little bitof information, and give it the goal of minimizing delays at its own
little corner. So the light would be able to register the number ofcars stacked up at the intersection, and it would be able to experiment with different rhythms of red and green, with some feedback
from its near neighbors. When it stumbles across a pattern that
reduces delays, it sticks to that pattern; if the delays start piling up
again, it starts experimenting again. The problem with this sort ofapproach is that on Day One it’s a terrible, terrible system, because
it doesn’t yet know anything about traffic flows. (You’d have to teach244

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

EXECUTIVE INSIGHT (CONTINUED)
it quite a bit before you could actually implement it.) But it would
learn very quickly, and most importantly, it would be capable ofresponding to changing conditions in a way that the traditionallyengineered approach would not. That’s a hallmark of adaptability.”
Consider a system composed of many different companies
whose goal is to provide a market with the highest levels of
responsiveness at the lowest cost to themselves. High levelsof responsiveness require that these companies work together
to design, make, and deliver the right products at the rightprice at the right time in the right amounts. What are some of
the things that these companies could do to organize themselves into an emergent system?

“There’s a telltale term in supply chain systems, which may well be
unavoidable—the term ‘chain’ itself. Almost all emergent systems
are networks or grids; they tend to be flatter and more horizontal,
with interaction possible between all the various agents. The problem that supply chains have with positive feedback revolves aroundthe distance between the consumer and those suppliers further
down the chain; because the information has to pass through somany intermediaries, you get distortion in the message. Most emergent systems that I’ve looked at have a great diversity of potential
routes that information can follow; the more chain-like they become,they less adaptive they are. The other key here is experimentation:letting the system evolve new patterns of interaction on its own,
since these can often be more useful and efficient than the preplanned ones. Of course, you don’t want to waste a few economic
quarters experimenting with different supply chains, most of which
are a disaster. But that’s where some of the wonderful new modeling systems for complex behavior can be very handy: you can do theexperimenting on the computer, and then pick the best solutions to
implement in real life.”

245

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

E mergent Behavior in Supply Chains
In the workings of a system such as a free market we witness emergent
behavior. This behavior is what the great British economist Adam
Smith referred to as the “invisible hand” of the market. This invisible
hand emerges to set product prices so as to best allocate available supplies to meet market demands. Local interactions between large numbers of agents, governed by simple rules of mutual feedback, produce a
macro effect for the system as a whole that results in what we call emergent behavior.
As we begin to practice supply chain management as a gamebetween companies and people who are motivated to achieve certain
performance targets, we will see emergent behavior in supply chains.
Good players in the supply chains of particular markets will seek eachother out because by playing together they can create more efficient
supply chains and generate better profits.
Supply chains will form up like sports teams and these teams willcompete with each other for market share. Just as the game of basketball or soccer evolves over time, so too will the game of supply chain
management. New tactics, techniques, and technology will come about.
Market demands and the desire for competitive advantage will drive
companies to collaborate and innovate with each other to win at thegame of supply chain management.
Computers are best used to automate the rote, repetitious activities
that humans find to be dull and boring. These are all the ongoing androutine activities of recording and monitoring supply chain operations.
Computers do these tasks very well. They do not fall asleep, they do not
miss details, and they can handle enormous volumes of data withoutcomplaint.
People are best used to do the creative and problem solving activities.
These are the activities that do not have clear right or wrong answers.
246

The Promise of the Real-Time Supply Chain

These are the activities that call for people to collaborate with otherpeople and share information and try out different approaches to see
which ones work best. People are good at these activities and they likedoing them so they learn and keep getting better.
At a macro level, this will give rise to supply chains that, in effect,learn and grow smarter. Computers will listen to the hum and crackleof data flowing through the real-time, always-on supply chain. They
will employ pattern recognition algorithms to spot exceptions andevents that need to be brought to the attention of human beings. Like
good pilots and navigators, people will learn to respond effectively tothese developments as they happen. People will learn to keep steering
the supply chain on a course toward its desired performance targets.

Adaptive Networks and Economic Cycles
As we learn to recognize and effectively respond to developments inour supply chains it will tend to lengthen the periods of market growthand stability. Any industry or market where there is a boom to bustcycle is an opportunity for us to apply the self-adjusting feedback loop
to smooth out the economic ups and downs. The boom to bust cycle
is caused by the same dynamic that results in the bullwhip effect in individual supply chains.
In industries ranging from electronics manufacturing to real estatedevelopment to telecommunications, the boom to bust cycle causes economic waste and disruption. It also brings with it all the related humanhardships that are caused by the cycle. The ability to recognize andsmooth out excessive swings in demand, prices, and productive capacity
in different areas of the economy will create greater stability.And throughthis stability more wealth will be both generated and preserved. Thinkof the wealth that was destroyed by the excessive investments that createdmore dot com companies and more telecommunications capacity than247

ESSENTIALS of Supply Chain Management

were needed. Think of the wealth that disappeared in the company
closures and job losses that happened when these companies and their
suppliers finally had to face the consequences of too much supply andnot enough demand.
Adaptive supply chain networks using real-time information andnegative feedback can effectively dampen excessive market swings. Thisability alone will have a wealth creation effect that is even more powerful than what was created by the effect of the steam engine.

Chapter Summary
The “always-on” connection of the Internet and other communications
networks allows us to see ourselves in real-time. We can now see thesupply chain as a continuous moving picture whereas in the past we
could only see it as a collection of snapshots taken at periodic intervals.
This always-on, moving picture makes it possible to constantly adjust
supply chain operations week to week and day to day to get significant
new efficiencies.
This self-adjusting feedback loop is harnessed to the supply chain
through the daily actions of the people who carry out supply chain operations. First motivate people by providing them with monetary or psychological rewards for achieving predefined performance targets. Thenprovide people with real-time information that shows them whether
they are moving toward or away from their targets. People will steer toward
their targets and they will learn to hit these targets more often than not.
The effect of this dynamic will be to give rise to supply chains thatare both highly responsive and very efficient. Real-time operating adjustments will result in supply chains that can better adapt to business changes
and deliver performance and profitability that is of a higher level thananything that has been seen before.

248

Additional Resources
1. Books
Chopra, Sunil, and Peter Meindl, 2001, Supply Chain
Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operations, Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Fredendall, Lawrence D., and Ed Hill, 2001, Basics of Supply
Chain Management, Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press.
Goldratt, Eliyahu M., 1984, The Goal, Great Barrington, MA:
The North River Press Publishing Corporation.
Graham, Gordon, 1987, Distribution Inventory Management,
Richardson, TX: Inventory Management Press.
Johnson, Steven, 2001, Emergence:The Connected Lives of Ants,
Brains, Cities, and Software, New York, NY: Scribner.
Roman, Eugene R., 1996, Reengineering the Distributor, South
Holland, IL: Systems Design, Inc.
Senge, Peter M., 1990, The Fifth Discipline:The Art and Practice of
the Learning Organization, New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency.
Stack, Jack, 1992, The Great Game of Business, New York, NY:
Currency/Doubleday.

2. Magazines & Journals
EBN, Manhasset, NY: CMP Media, Inc.
Journal of Business Logistics, Oak Brook, IL: Council of Logistics
Management.
Supply Chain Technology News, Cleveland, OH: Penton Media, Inc.

3. Internet
Council of Logistics Management, www.clm1.org
Integrated Business Communications Alliance, www.ibcaweb.org
Stanford Global Supply Chain Forum,
www.stanford.edu/group/scforum249

Additional Resources

Supply-Chain Council Home Page, supply-chain.nidhog.com
Supply Chain Management Research Center,www.cio.com/research/scm
Uniform Code Council, www.uc-council.org

4. Professional Organizations
The Council of Logistics Management2805 Butterfield Road, Suite 200, Oak Brook, IL 60523,
Ph: (630) 574-0985

AM
FL
Y

The Supply-Chain Council
1150 Freeport Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238,
Ph: (412) 781-4101

TE

This list of additional resources just barely scratches the surface. The reader
should also use Internet search engines such as Google (www.google.com)
and do a further search. Another useful search resource are online book sellers
such as Amazon (www.amazon.com) and Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com).

250

Index7-Eleven, 31

Ccash-to-cash cycle time, 147
Chopra, Sunil, 2, 9, 32, 38–40, 50, 126,249
collaborative planning, forecasting, andreplenishment (CPFR), 115–117
how to start, 118–119
competitive advantage, see business strategy
complex adaptive behavior, 243conceptual system design, 181, 183–191
core competencies, 20–23, 33–40, 99–101
cost benefit analysis (CBA), 199–205
Covisint, 135
credit and collections, 70–73
crossdocking, 11–12, 94
customer relationship management(CRM), 129
customer service, 65–66,80, 130–131, 141,180
customer service metrics, 144–146, 149
cycle inventory, 12, 59, 63

Aactivity cycle time, 148,149
adaptive behavior, 243
adaptive networks, 247–248
advanced planning and scheduling systems,
127–128
Aero Exchange International, 135
aggregate planning, 54–55
Alexander the Great, 7–9, 240–241
Alexy, James, 169–171
always-on connection, 236–238, 248

B
beer game, 104–105
big box store format, 18–19
Breed Technologies, 101
broadband, 122–123
build to order (BTO), 144–146, 149
build to stock (BTS), 144–145, 149
bullwhip effect, 104–106, 114–115,
118–119, 238, 247
demand forecasting, 107order batching, 108
performance incentives, 110
product pricing, 109
product rationing, 109
burn rate, 225
Burton, Donald, 95–97
business cycle, 103–104
business strategy, 30aligning the supply chain, 31–37
business opportunities, 177
strategy creation, 178–182
See also core competencies
See also conceptual system designDdata sharing, 164–171
data warehouse, 158–163
days sales outstanding (DSO), 71
DC. See distribution centerdebt to net worth, 152delivery scheduling, 91, 95–97
delivery sources, 93
direct deliveries, 91
generalized assignment, 92–93
milk run deliveries, 92
savings matrix technique, 92–93
Dell Computers, 38–40, 117, 239
demand flexibility, 142, 148–150, 163, 178
demand forecasting, 48–50
forecasting methods, 50–53
forecasting variables, 49–50
251Indexdemand planning systems, 128
Dethlefsen,Walter, 175–176
digital subscriber line (DSL), 122
distribution center (DC), 19, 38, 93–94
distributors, 24, 27, 105–106

information systems, 121
assessing needs, 130–131
data capture and communication,
121–124
data manipulation and reporting,
126–130
data storage and retrieval, 124–126
Integrated Business Communications
Alliance (ICBA), 120
interest coverage, 152internal efficiency, 141, 143, 154, 156,
163–164, 238
efficiency metrics, 146–147
Internet, 122, 123, 190–191, 235–237, 249
inventory. See performance drivers
inventory management, 58–64
inventory management systems, 129–130
inventory turns, 146–147
inventory value, 146

E
Eastern Bag & Paper, 95–97
e-business, 133–136
economic lot size (ELS), 81–82
economic order quantity (EOQ), 60–62
electronic data interchange (EDI), 19,
123–124
Ellram, Lisa M., 2emergent behavior, 241–247
Engels, Donald W., 7
enterprise resource planning (ERP),
126–127
everyday low prices, 19–20
extensible markup language (XML),
123–124

J
job lot storage, 11
Johnson, Steven, 241–245
just-in-time inventory (JIT), 168, 170

F
facility management, 83–84, 85–87
feedback loop, 237–239, 243–244, 248
Ford Motor Company, 20, 22, 100
Ford, Henry, 22
ForestExpress, 135
functional focus, 11K
Keebler, James S., 3

L
Lambert, Douglas M., 2late orders, 144
learning network, 244
Lee, Hau, 134, 166–167
line item fill rate, 144
local area network (LAN), 122, 219
location. See performance drivers
logistics, 2, 4, 7, 26–27, 47, 249, 250

G
Ganeshan, Ram, 3Goldratt, Eliyahu M., 9, 111, 249
Green, Leonard, 65–66

H
Harrison, Terry P., 3
Hewlett Packard, 99
Hill, Edward, 111, 249
Honda Motor Co., Inc., 100
Hopp,Wallace, 99–101

Mmaintenance, repair, and operating supplies (MRO), 67
manufacturing execution systems (MES),
130
market migration, 163–164, 165
markets, model of, 137–140
Martin, Christopher, 131–133

I
indirect items, 67
information. See performance drivers

252Index

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 104
Meindl, Peter, 2, 9, 32, 50, 126, 249
Mitchum, Robert, 151–152, 200

procurement, 64
consumption management, 67
contract management, 69–70
contract negotiation, 68–69
purchasing, 64, 67
vendor selection, 68
procurement systems, 127
producers, 24
product design, 77–80
product development, 142, 143, 150
product focus, 10
product pricing, 56
production. See performance drivers
production scheduling, 80–83
project budget, 197–199, 222–223
project evaluation, 223–224
project leader, 208, 211–212, 229–232
project objectives, 194–197, 209–210,
221–222
project office, 211–212, 225–226, 230
project organization, principles, 208–212
project plan, 194–197, 198, 222–223
project team, 209–210, 212, 225, 229–230
purchase order, 84, 88–90

Nnegative feedback, 243–244
NetLink-NSC™, 190–191
Network Services Co.
conceptual system design, 191
data sharing concerns, 169–170
performance measurement, 151–152
power in supply chains, 175–176
system development, 228–231
Nix, Nancy W., 3
Northwestern University, 38, 99

Oon-time delivery rate, 144
order fill rate, 144
order management, 84, 88–90
outside flexibility, 148–150
outsourcing, 20, 97–101

PPace, Charlie, 28–30
Paper Enterprises, 46–48
Penn State University, 3
performance categories, 141–142
performance drivers, 10, 17, 34–36
information, 6, 15–18, 36, 121, 124, 126
inventory, 5, 12–13, 58–59
location, 5, 13–14
production, 5, 10–12, 45, 80–84
transportation, 6, 14–15, 91–94
performance measurement, 142–144
collection of data, 155–156
dashboard displays, 159–163
key indicators, 161–162
performance targets, 178–180, 183, 207,
238–239, 248
Perkins, 85–87
Perkins, Gary, 85
Perkins, Larry, 85–87
process mapping, 214, 215
Proctor & Gamble, 117Q
quantity of product, 32
quoted customer response time, 144

Rrate of innovation, 33
response time, 32, 148retailers, 25, 105, 106
return on investment (ROI), 197, 199–205
return on sales, 146, 147, 152
return on shareholder equity, 152
return rate, 144
Reuben, Meredith, 95–97
Robbins, Clifford, 73–75
RosettaNet, 124S
safety inventory, 58, 62–64
sales force automation (SFA), 129
SCOR model, 44–46, 157

253

Indexlevel 2 performance metrics, 153, 156
level 3 diagnostic metrics, 153, 156
seasonal inventory, 13, 62
Sedler, Herbert, 46–48
Sedler, Jordan, 46–48
Senge, Peter, 105service level, 33,74, 80, 82, 96–97, 168
Service Paper Company, 65–66
service providers, 26–27
SiteStuff, 28–30
SQL. See structured query language
Stack, Jack, 239
Stanford University, 134, 144, 166
Stock, James R., 2
stock keeping unit (SKU) storage, 11
structured query language (SQL), 125
Stuart, Michael, 28
supply chain capabilities, 31–32
supply chain management systems (SCM),
129–131
supply chain management, definition of,
2–3
supply chain management, the game of,
239–241
Supply-Chain Council, 44, 153, 250
Sweetheart Cups, 169
system development sequence, 195, 198
system prototype, 215
user interface prototype, 216–218
technical architecture prototype,219–220
system test and roll out, 226–227

U
Uniform Code Council, Inc., 120
universal product code (UPC), 120
upside flexibility, 148
user interface. See system prototype

Vvalue added network (VAN), 123value of total backorders, 144
vendor managed inventory (VMI), 167vertical integration, 20–23
virtual integration, 21, 23
virtual private network (VPN), 122
Voluntary Interindustry CommerceStandards (VICS), 115

W
W.W. Grainger, 33
Wal-Mart, 18–20, 38–39, 41, 52, 94, 117,
239
Walton, Samuel, 18
warehouse management systems (WMS),
130
warehousing, 11
warranty returns, 144
Wax, Charles, 73–75
Waxie Sanitary Supply, 73–75
wide area network (WAN), 122
WMS. See warehouse management systems

X
XML. See extensible markup language

Ttechnical architecture. See system prototype
Theory of Constraints, 111
focusing steps, 112–113
Tibersoft, 131–133, 190, 195–196, 198
time boxing, 195–196, 198transportation. See performance drivers
transportation modes, 14–15
transportation planning systems, 128
transportation scheduling systems, 130

254