What is Seasonal Demand? During the holidays, when we’re continuously flooded with the next themed decor, or Starbucks Coffee drink, or seasonal dinner dish, I’m constantly reminded that these goods are purposefully designed to be consumed at a particular time of year. To get these goods to consumers, including myself, supply chain professionals have worked …
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Tag Archives: Supply Chain Improvement
I have worked in the manufacturing supply chain information technology (IT) field for more years than I care to admit. A sleepy-eyed dinosaur stares back at me from the bathroom mirror each morning. Over the course of my career, more than a few trends have emerged. Many of them, perhaps most of them, have turned …
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I’m a supply chain lifer. I started in manufacturing, but early in my career made the transition to supply chain and never looked back. It was never easy to explain to others what I did though. I would say, “all the stuff between manufacturing and sales.” Still, I don’t think they really understood the complexity …
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If you love the outdoors as I do, you probably had a similar reaction to the study published in the September issue of the journal, Science. This study of standardized bird surveys, augmented by radar observations of migrating birds, showed a roughly 30% reduction in the population of wild birds in the continental US and …
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The biggest challenge organizations face is retaining expertise and organizational knowledge. This may be hard to fathom, but in the 29 years I have been helping supply chain and business organizations make better decisions, it is surprising how often the groups re-visit the same decisions over again. Key roles are turning over more quickly, and …
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Our Idea of fun is making supply chain heroes. It’s why Fortune 500 companies trust us to solve their biggest problems. Listen to John Cutler, Ted Schafer, and Dr. Alan Kosansky discuss our approach to listening to our clients.
5G networks are the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, offering faster speeds and more reliable connections on smartphones and other devices than ever before. 5G will help power a huge rise in Internet of Things technology (extension of Internet connectivity into physical devices and everyday objects), providing the infrastructure needed to carry huge amounts …
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I previously worked in the finance-tech industry, where the speed of getting a solution was often the most important thing. Now I work in the supply chain industry where the speed of finding a solution is important but not quite as important as getting the correct and best solution. While the technology we have today …
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I recently went to a talk on Reinforcement Learning (RL) in my local .Net development group. I found the topic fascinating. For those not familiar with Reinforcement learning; it is a type of unsupervised machine learning where the algorithm uses real-world feedback over time to learn what to do. Instead of providing a set of …
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Identifying Which Customers Not to Serve!
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Recently, I was out with some friends to check out a Chinese restaurant I had never been to before. As usual, I looked forward to getting my fortune cookie. My fortune was totally nonsensical as happens sometimes but my friend’s fortune read as follows: “Getting the right answers is only possible when you have asked …
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There’s no doubt that the Sales and Marketing side of a business can often seem like the ‘sexy’ side of the operation. Just picture a new car showroom with all of those shiny, glitzy vehicles just waiting for a test drive. But the supply chain that put those gleaming new cars in the showroom initially …
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