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Are you leveraging the power of PDCA in supply chain improvement?
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle, propounded by Deming, is a powerful tool for stabilizing and improving the performance of any system. While it has been widely implemented in the manufacturing environment, we should leverage it in improving the supply chain performance.
In many companies, supply planning (P) and supply execution (D) depend on the outcome of the S&OP or IBP process, which has a monthly refresh. On the other hand, market feedback of consumer demand (C) is received on a daily basis. Since P and D have a monthly frequency and C is daily, what should be the frequency of A? Supply chain managers facing this dilemma often end up acting on market feedback at a monthly frequency.
If we want to leverage the true power of PDCA, we should convert the entire PDCA cycle to a daily frequency. Supply planning (P), supply execution (D), demand sensing (C) and course correction (A) should all happen on a daily basis.
This would be the first step towards agility. Are you willing to travel this path?