One of the most common issues executives raise is the inability to secure reliable delivery dates upfront when communicating with customers and taking orders. Clearly, this bottleneck results in frustration and the potential for lost orders as customers demand reliable delivery dates, stable lead times, and expedited performance.
As geopolitical and economic risks rise, executives become more concerned. Proactive clients are taking action to boldly invest where it makes sense while aggressively focusing on inventory and cost reduction of non-value added items/ work and also ensuring high customer service levels.
The supply chain is in a constant state of disruption. As we discussed on Supply Chain Chats, simple backup plans are no longer enough. In fact, you can look at recent events and determine if a backup is sufficient. Starting with the pandemic, of course, most if not all companies didn't have a sufficient enough backup plan.
Clients are struggling to keep up with customer's changing requests. Order backlogs remain relatively high (depending on the industry), but customers are pushing orders out at the last minute, pulling orders in without notice, adding future potential orders, and changing requirements on the fly. Production is scrambling to keep up.
Manufacturing is on a downward trend after eight months of PMI (purchasing manager's index) below 50. It dropped to 46 in June. China's manufacturing also shrank for a third month in a row to a PMI of 49. Yet manufacturers backlogs remain relatively robust in many industries, leading executives perplexed on what to do about capacity shortfalls.
At its simplest, labor scheduling is determining which people (and which skills) you should have at which sites at which work centers at what time (shift) to ensure the right products can be delivered to the right customer at the right time.
Lisa Anderson facilitated a panel discussion at the New England Supply Chain Conference and Exposition on managing capacity in complex and volatile environments with Shari Ruelas General Manager of Commercial Products Chevron, Alejandro Bustamante Senior Advisor to CEO & Board of Directors of Poly/HP, and Dan Raatjes SVP & COO King's Hawaiian Holding Co.
Managing capacity during these turbulent times in a complex, volatile, long-lead time environment has proven quite the challenge. During the pandemic, sales volumes either dropped like a rock or skyrocketed with no middle ground. Most manufacturers have not been able to keep up with demand in the last year [...]
Capacity planning is the structured process of determining whether your organization has the resources required to meet your demand plan and support your revenue growth goals. Capacity plans analyze machinery and equipment, labor and skills, facilities and space, and suppliers and supply chain partner capabilities to ensure you can [...]
Clients are growing quickly. No matter the industry and company size, clients and colleagues are seeing growth. The only question is how quickly and whether they can keep up. Capacity constraints are popping up everywhere. On the logistics front, Southern California has no available space; the ports are backlogged, prices are rising [...]
