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Are you consciously reducing the improvement latency in the Supply Chain?
Improvement latency is hardly ever discussed and tracked in companies’ supply chains. Even the definition is not clear to many supply chain leaders.
Improvement latency refers to the time lapse between identifying an improvement opportunity and executing it fully to get the desired benefits. This period could be as long as 6 to 18 months in many companies.
What are the components of this time lapse? The first one is noticing an Undesirable Effect in the supply chain and agreeing that we should treat it as a significant improvement opportunity. Many teams just fail to agree whether to tackle it or not.
Once the team decides to take it up, it often takes time to analyse the current reality and get to the root cause. This process is again time consuming for many teams, especially if the direction of improvement for the overall supply chain is ambiguous. Is it internal looking (such as cost reduction) or is it consumer facing (improved availability, fresher stocks, faster delivery)?
Executing the preventive action again takes time especially if it conflicts with the current policies, measurements, processes.
It is indeed possible to accelerate the entire process and ensure that consumers benefit as fast as possible after we notice an issue in our supply chain delivery.