To thrive post COVID, manufacturing resilience will be cornerstone. Customers expect personalization, customization, and rapid deliveries without disruption, and they will change suppliers, substitute products and do whatever is required to satisfy their customers or get what's needed. For example, although the preference is for online purchasing, consumers will return to stores to ensure quick, reliable supply of critical items.
2021 was plagued with shortages. As discussed in clients’ demand planning/ forecasting meetings, history is not representative of the future. In one example, the client experienced material shortages and couldn’t sell what customers requested, and so carrying that forecast into the New Year would deliberately carry that issue into 2022.
In working with clients across multiple industries including industrial equipment, food and beverage, building and construction products and healthcare products, there is no doubt that clients using a SIOP (sales, inventory and operations planning) and integrated business planning process are pulling away from the competition.
"The minority of clients that are proactive were using just-in-time principles, but in a way that works during the pandemic," said Lisa Anderson, President of the LMA Consulting Group. "As a decision-maker, I need to have a certain amount of safety stock, but I will replenish that as we take orders, and we'll replenish those reserves [...]
Supply Chain Disruption The pandemic certainly brought supply chain disruptions to the forefront. People who never gave supply chain a thought were suddenly focused on the topic. Early in the pandemic, I was interviewed on Rip City Sports Radio about toilet paper and later by Bloomberg about supply chain [...]
Lisa Anderson was interviewed by Lucie Newcomb for the podcast series “Staying Global While Staying Home”. They addressed the topic of the state of the global supply chain and strategies to successfully navigate with Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP / SIOP) with an emphasis on getting a handle on [...]
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 [...]
According to an informal survey of manufacturers, distributors and healthcare executives, the #1 issue that is top of mind is how to scale successfully. Our clients are growing. For example, those in the building and construction products industry are experiencing significant growth fueled by the pandemic; those in e-commerce [...]
If you aren't seeing the end-to-end supply chain as strategic, you will miss your opportunity to get ahead of the competition and grow as rapidly as you otherwise could! How quickly can you scale with increasing sales volume? [...]
According to a McKinsey survey about COVID-19’s impact on operations and the future supply chain, supply chain leaders believe it will be transformed. For example, close to 75% experienced issues in the production, distribution and supplier footprint that will require changes in the future, and a whopping 93% of [...]
