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Is your production system flexible to synchronize with current demand pattern?
Many companies are in the process of implementing Demand Driven Supply Chain and I have been helping them in this journey.
An important requirement of DDSC is the flexibility and responsiveness of backend operations, such as production and procurement. I often hear from the production teams that their operations allow very little flexibility. Let me explain with a specific example.
Pharma teams often cite regulatory constraints in reducing batch sizes, which is true in most cases. If batch size is fixed, can we tweak the production schedule? Postpone the production of a formulation where demand has slumped, and advance the production of another product where we see a surge in demand. Once we discuss it, these are easy to implement. Moreover, the same formulation goes into several skus, in different sizes and delivery mechanisms. If the overall formulation batch can’t be altered, we can surely change the quantity of these skus.
Once the production team realises that their operations are indeed flexible to a large extent, they find more and more ways to make it even more flexible.
My experience suggests that production flexibility is largely a mindset issue, reinforced by the practices generally followed in the industry.