Basics Matter… “Why we lost the contract?”

After 20 years of working in Supply Chain, still my passion is in the area of Material and Supply Management… so to answer a question that many times been asked to me…

“Why we lost the contract?”

Simply… Sometimes you lose supplying contract with a company because I have visited your facility…

I started my career in QA and then moved to SC…With my all respect to all the parameters of Supply/Procurement and contract negotiation I consider Site visit to your “prospect” supplier is a must specially if it is a long term contract.. if you are the customer for a certain product or service, we tend to delegate and will be happy to stay in our office while others are negotiating the contract.. then later you cry from service or after sales quality…  There are some basics that you need to go and inspect yourself.

Go and visit the supplier who will be “your business partner”. You go and request a site tour.. do not depend on the fact that he was audited for ISO or certified bla bla bla… this is a check list and Supplier success in it may came with a good score but the concern points hit your core requirements.

You will only lose 1 day travel budget but if not done you may lose a lot later.

Go to the supplier site and make a tour in unplanned day..

• Call only 1 day ahead and and say that you are around and want to make a quick visit for the lines and walk around.
  

• Request to plug your PC.. see how they will deal with the Plug (if you need a converter and you will find them sticking a pen on the plug to allow your 2 head on 3 head plug it will be fun)

• Be ready with your safety shoes and comfortable wear..

• While you are there request a snack, move to the canteen and

have a look.. the quality of how they deal with their own food will tell you how they deal with the BOM of your product.

• Request to go to the site and politely request to go to the toilet, not the guest toilet.. to the toilet around you.. just wait till you see the sign and tell them you need a break.. there you will see the truth of the quality and EHS of the place.. not in the check lists..

I am not saying this is not done.. Just it is not done enough..

Not all products are FMCG and Cars.. lets talk something different!

One of the mistakes we all fall in.. is always talking about how great is Apple and MacDonald or how Agile is the SC of P&G or Lean is Toyota...

What about other industries? .. we are using every day products that we need to share their success and get more affiliated with their challenges...

Will be great to see some responds...

2019... may be New place means new things??

It have been a tough period.. we all lost someone or something and it was not healthy to share stories about change if you still did not see the results of the change.. 
So we waited 

Now we finally passed 1.5 year of our company in Bahrain.. had to close our Sharjah/UAE based office due to lack of focus and conflict of interests with our day job..:) 

Any way we are trying to get back to our social commitment and share the challenges of day to day work, hope we commit this time.

Difficult to get back after a Long Break

We Should come back... Yes we do ... lets wait ... this is not the time... we are all over occupied.. we need to make a difference as we promised..lots of thing happening...lets wait after the wedding of A.S.&Y.H ..lets wait till WM Settle in GCC..lets wait till M.B. finish..S.H is graduating.. YK is having a baby and have no time...
At a certain point .. I found an alert that the last time I logged in here was in 2013... Two years back  a what I realized was my this was "extended" blog break for 2 years. Two years! time flies. we teach time management and we let it fly... yes we were not idle..but 2 years without a word... this is too much.....

Supply Chain Trends

Game Changing Trends in Supply Chain

The white paper, sponsored by Ernst and Young, and Terra Technology was written by nine faculty members at the University of Tennessee.

Many opinions exist regarding the mega trends or game changing trends in supply chain. It seems like every month a new article or conference lecture presents a fresh set of ideas on the major issues and forces faced by supply chain professionals. Most consulting companies, academics, and even individual companies have their own views.  Often these mega trend lists do not match, and instead reflect the backgrounds and experiences of the people who compile them. a major So, what makes our report any different?

The ten game changing trends discussed in this white paper have their foundations in a landmark study done 13 years ago in 2000 and co-authored by Ted Stank on our faculty.  Based on our interaction with literally hundreds of companies annually (the largest industry network in the academic world), we absolutely believe that those trends can still serve as a foundation.  But the supply chain world has changed a lot over the past thirteen years. We think you will find it fascinating, as we did, to reflect on the changes made in each of the original dimensions. However in this white paper, we’ll discuss the game changing supply chain trends that you need to squarely face today, and we’ll suggest how to make progress toward the desired end state.  We’ll also use plenty of examples along the way.

When a student asked Albert Einstein if the questions on this year’s physics exam were the same as last year, he responded, “Yes, but unfortunately for you the answers are very different.”  It’s the same with our game changing trends. We still see some of the same supply chain trends, but the real world approaches to dealing with them are reaching a dramatically higher plane of sophistication. 

Nine members of our supply chain management faculty collaborated in identifying ten game changing trends and in writing this document. The ten trends align perfectly with the research being done by these faculty members. (The University of Tennessee is ranked number one in the world in supply chain management research.)  In addition we leveraged the extensive knowledge base of our two sponsors, Ernst and Young and Terra Technology. And we tapped our wide ranging experience with industry leaders through our global forums, executive education, and consulting.

This document will give you a brief synopsis of the leading thinking today on ten game changing trends in supply chain. The ten trends we have identified are:

1. Customer service to customer relationship management
2. Adversarial relationship to supplier collaboration
3. Incremental change to a transformational agile strategy
4. Functional focus to process integration
5. Absolute value for the firm to relative value for the customers
6. Forecasting to demand management.
7. Training to knowledge based learning
8. Vertical integration to virtual integration
9. Information hoarding to information sharing and visibility.
10. Managerial accounting to value based management

We recently (November-December 2012) completed a survey of over 160 supply chain professionals to assess the state in industry today of these ten trends, as well as the change from the past.  The survey also highlighted the changes made over the past 13 years on each of these game-changing trends and those changes are fascinating. We’ve listed below some highlights of that survey which we’ll expand in the body of the white paper:

• Firms have made significant, and in some cases, surprising progress in the last decade plus in each of the ten areas.
• Some companies have achieved top levels of performance in certain individual categories, although no firm has done it in all categories.  It is intriguing that no one reported a top level of performance 13 years ago in any category.
• There are laggards in each category as well.  These firms still appear to be fighting the same battles in the same way.
• Respondents feel that most progress has been made in customer relationships and cross-functional integration.  Firms seem to be getting much better at focusing on their customers outside the firm, and shoring up the focus on cross-functional processes inside the firm.
• Although companies have made the most improvement in cross-functional and cross-organizational processes and activities, they also remain the keys to further progress in the areas of greatest opportunity for improvement.  Those five areas with the greatest opportunity for improvement according to our survey are:
• Managerial to value-based accounting
• Absolute to relative customer value
• Vertical to virtual integration
• Adversarial to collaborative relationships
• Information hoarding to sharing
• In addition to these five, Talent Management clearly emerges as the linchpin required for advancement in all areas.

Four Future Articles in this Series

We’ll explore each of these game-changing trends in future weeks in more detail.  There will be four more articles in the series organized as follow:
1.  Supply Chain Strategy and Performance
• Customer service to customer relationship management
• Absolute value for the firm to relative value for the customers
• Managerial accounting to value based management

2.  Supply Chain Relationship Management
• Vertical integration to virtual integration
• Adversarial relationship to supplier collaboration

3.  Supply Chain Planning and Execution
• Forecasting to demand management
• Functional focus to process integration
• Incremental change to a transformational agile strategy

4.  Supply Chain Enablers:  Talent and Information
• Training to knowledge based learning
• Information hoarding to information sharing and visibility

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March 15, 2013 - SCMR Editorial

Editor’s Note: The University of Tennessee has released a major white paper exploring ten game changing trends in supply chain management.  The white paper, sponsored by Ernst and Young, and Terra Technology was written by nine faculty members at the University of Tennessee. This article consists of an introduction to the material, and will be followed by additional releases exploring each game changing trend in more detail.

Time To Read

Got Time To Read More Books?

Have you still got the time to read more books? Do they only gather a lot of dusts and cobwebs because you don't care to open them or you simply lack the time to read more books?

You have to accept the fact that you can pick the ones you like to keep on reading--and that you don't have to peruse everything. There may be plenty of classics and others which claims that some works are "must-read", but then again, you don't have to force yourself in try and reading more books if you can't even get past the tenth or at least the 5th page.

What matters most is that you choose to read more books you only want to read and not just you buy a book that everyone is talking about but then you can't even manage to get on with it!

Here are some tips in what to look for to really know what you want to get on reading:

1) Look for genres which truly interests you. There are several of them--romance, suspense, thrillers, psychological thrillers, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.

2) Search for those written by authors you already know and enjoyed their works.

3) And those whom people highly recommend you try and at the same time, who like the similar books you enjoy. Of course, you have to understand that not all reading materials grab your attention right from the first page. Give yourself and the book enough time to sink in and be immersed in a subject matter or characters of the book. Don't rush and be in a hurry to grab a book if you got only a few minutes left to spare, or you have some important agenda to work on first.

Just the same with people, it takes awhile to get to know someone, like you give yourself ample time to get started with a book. But hey, once you're engrossed or get attached, you'll find it easy to continue reading.

You Lead,I Follow

You Lead,I Follow - The Non-Leader

A lot of focus has been placed on being a good leader. In fact, there is more literature about good leadership than any other management topic. This is because leadership covers not only management, but it involves teams, motivation and even our social lives.

But what of the people who consider themselves non-leaders?

If you are contented to follow, you are, by definition, a follower. Yet, the reality is that no one is a 100% follower. Everyone, bar none, will at one time or another be in a leadership position.

“Anyone knows a good restaurant around here?”

A timid hands goes up, and Timid Tim says, “I do. Follow me.”

No! That is not leadership! Yes, I can hear those protests loud and clear. Now, Timid Tim starts walking, turns a corner, goes down a flight of stairs, turns another corner all the while muttering to himself about how wonderful that restaurant is. Then, when he arrives, he is alone. Somewhere along the way, he manages to lose the entire group.

Sure, that is not LEADERSHIP, but even this simple example of leading a small group serves to show that at some point, you have to lead.

When speakers talk about leadership and how everyone should be trained and about how everyone is a leader, there are many scoffers. They think that this is all about selling more seminars. Or it is just hot air to encourage the “others” so they don’t feel too bad. Hardly.

In our many capacities, we are followers in some and leaders in others. It is inevitable. Have you ever followed someone with an IQ less than yours simply because he knew where the toilet was and you don’t?

Leadership skills are especially important at home. At work, there is always some one ready to step up to the plate. We all want to excel. Be promoted. Be noticed. One man’s faltering is another man’s elevator.

But at home, there is just you and your family. Think about that. The option for someone else to “step up to the plate” are not too plentiful in the home.

So, the next time you have a chance to attend a “leadership workshop” or a leadership seminar, don’t pass up the chance just because you think you are not a leader.