All Posts Tagged "procurement"...
Too Much or Not Enough?
Supply chain and operations management professionals have a love-hate relationship with inventory. In production, there’s nothing worse than getting ready to start a job and discovering that parts are unavailable. Likewise, from a customer service perspective, it’s impossible to fulfill customer demand without the right amount of the right inventory at the right time. People in our profession love having parts and products when we need them, but hate any amount of inventory that ties up company money; takes up space; and causes extra, non-value adding work to handle, store, count, and manage.
ERP Priorities
June 2012
If you were to invest in ERP this year, what business areas are of the most concern or would you expect the most benefit from? Is inventory control a legitimate reason to invest in ERP?
WIP Inventory
March 2012. Advice and Assistance for Manufacturers. Raw materials and parts inventory is maintained at a level that is required to meet the needs of the plant based on the production schedule and adjusted by procurement considerations like lot sizing
Master the art of forecasting
At year’s end, we are often caught up in thinking and planning for the current year. Did 2011 turn out the way you expected? Will 2012 be dramatically different? Are there other factors — things we are planning to do; things we think our competitors might do; outside forces such as changing tastes, demographics or economics — that might change the course of business in the coming year?
Are You Prepared? Supply Chain in the News
March 2011
Market Analysis & Communications for the Manufacturing Industry
The supply chain disruptions that are evolving from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan should be a wake-up call to all of us in the resource management field. Today’s lean supply chains are unquestionably more efficient and more effective than the old, traditional ways of doing business, but they are fragile. We no longer have the abundance of inventory in the pipeline and in the stockroom that might have allowed us to keep operating, for a time at least, when a supply or a transportation link fails.
How Do You S&OP?
Advice and Assistance for Manufacturers
November 2010
A recent AMR/Gartner email newsletter referenced a field study that revealed this interesting tidbit: “51% of companies said the only technology they use for S&OP is Microsoft Office plus Access databases”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Geopolitical Uncertainty Makes U.S. Sources More Attractive
When a company needs parts and materials, a purchasing or sourcing function will find an appropriate source, negotiate cost and terms, and administer the transactions to complete the procurement. In recent years, a lot of that purchasing activity has gone
Getting Green
November 2009
The heart of the ‘green’ movement is reducing waste and doing what you can to save resources. Sound familiar? It should; that’s what resource management professionals have been focused on for many years. And that’s what ERP and related systems are focused on as well. So, if you are using ERP to reduce waste and make your operations more efficient, you’re already going green.
