Supply Chain View

It has been a long time since I updated the site, almost a year in fact. Although my last employer didn’t explicitly forbid my sharing my professional thoughts on line, they did make it clear they were uncomfortable with it and I decided to respect their wishes.

But now that I have moved on, I am free to start again. The enforced hiatus has given me the opportunity to reflect on what I find interesting to share with you, and to do some research on which posts get the most interest. The focus will continue to be on solid supply chain issues, while also touching on some more generic process improvement topics.

It is very clear that practical and educative posts are highly rated. In fact, my two posts on how to reduce inventory are in number 2 position on the google search for “how to reduce inventory”, ahead of a slew of consultants and other solutions providers. I can’t help feeling very happy about that – it must mean that fair number of sites are linking to those articles (thank you). I am looking forward to running some more pieces in a similar style.

I have also been working on a tool that can be run in a web browser that demonstrates some of the key interactions in a supply chain or manufacturing operation using a simple simulation. It is called a discrete event simulation model - previously people have developed these as highly specialised and resource-hungry programs, but computing power has come such a long way that we can run a meaningful simulation inside Internet Explorer or Firefox. When the tool is a little more reliable I will make it freely available and use it to illustrate some poorly-understood phenomena, such as the relationship between capacity and cycle time, and how Push and Pull control systems really work.

Posts that link to online materials are also popular. I had a large number of enquiries about Wallace Hopp’s Supply Chain Science, which is unfortunately no longer available as a free download (but is available in a revised edition in print). I’ll continue to let you know about any good stuff I find.

I’ve had a few comments from people from the Humanitarian/Emergency sectors about some of the posts I’ve made on those topics. I’m still working with Bernard Auton on the CILT‘s Humanitarian and Emergencies Logistics Professionals (HELP) Forum, and I find the whole topic fascinating so I will continue to write about that.

I am going to make less comment than before on supply chain stories in the news (unless I feel reallystrongly!) These posts have a much shorter shelf life than others, and we supply chain professionals are far too busy and practical to be reading (or writing…) what is effectively a form of technical gossip swapping, aren’t we?

So, there’s plenty to be going on with. It’s good to be back.