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Nature doesn’t build dams to control flow.

Dams are used to control flow to downstream entities. Strange though it may sound, we don’t find dams in nature.

How does nature control flow? Nature does build lakes, wherever supplies are either infrequent or unreliable, but the demand is continuous. Lakes ensure that downstream is decoupled from upstream.

What’s the key difference between dams and lakes? Product flow is controlled by upstream (supplies) in dams and downstream (demand) in lakes.

How would you like to design your Supply Chain?

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While Helping Others On The Job, We Must Balance Inquiry And Advocacy

What Can Supply Chain Professionals Learn From ‘Smooth Drivers’?

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Is Your Production System Flexible To Synchronize With Current Demand Pattern?

Are You Planning A Major Investment In Supply Chain Planning Software?

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Never Say I Know

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Why Do Vendors Offer Quantity Based Discounts?

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Do You Believe In The Weather Forecasts?

Should We Predict Demand At The Granular Level Or At An Aggregate Level?

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Assumptions Behind Prevailing Industry Practices In Supply Chain Must Be Questioned For Breakthrough Improvements

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Do brand promotions perform uniformly across geographies and channels in your Supply Chain?

How Do We Deal With Conflicting Objectives In Supply Chain?

Are You Leveraging The Asymmetry In Cost Of Stockouts And Excess Inventory?

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Chaos Theory Has Good Learnings For Supply Chain Leaders

Order And Chaos Are Like Yin And Yang In Supply Chains

Are We Imposing Certainty On Uncertain Events?

Adaptability Of Supply Chains Is The Key To Sustained Excellence

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Are Functional KPIs Preventing Your Supply Chain To Become More Flexible?

Are We Aligned With Our Customers On Key Business Performance Metrics?

Fast And Reliable Delivery Does Command A Premium!

How Should You Design Your Supply Chain To Improve Its Effectiveness?

Vendors Are More Flexible Than We Assume

Should The Safety Stocks Built In Supply Chain Inventory Buffers Be Based On Demand Variability?

What Lies At The Root Of Frequent Firefighting In Supply Chains?

How Assorted Are Your Supply Chain Distribution Consignments?

How Should We Deal With Variations In Supply Chain?

How Do You View Variations In Various Supply Chain Processes?

Are You Still Searching For The Perfect Supply Chain Planning Solution?

How Soon Do You See The Impact Of Your Supply Chain Improvement Initiatives?

How Should You Prioritise The Supply Chain Improvement Initiatives?

Focus On Improving Forecast Accuracy May Lead To Perpetual Stockouts. Be Careful!

Why Is Bottom-Up Granular Demand Sensing So Much Better For Supply Chain Planning And Execution?

How Stale Is Your Demand Data For Supply Chain Planning And Execution?

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Why Do Dieting People Often End Up Gaining Weight In The Long Run?

Do You Treat Stockouts As Exceptions Or Norms?

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Why Do Supply Chain Functions Resist Frequent Forecast Changes?

The Primary Objective Of Operations Is To Improve Flow In The Supply Chain

Are You Aiming For 100% Utilization Of Your Supply Chain Resources?

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How To Spot Violation Of The Flow Principles In A Supply Chain?

Focus On Production Efficiency Often Leads To Lower Profits… Be Careful!

Benchmarking Efforts In Supply Chains Often Lead To Suboptimal Solutions

Capacity Constraints In Supply Chains Need ‘Flow’ Solutions

Only A Few Performance Measures Impact The Business Profits

How Rigid Is Your MTO-MTS Classification Of The Portfolio?

Profitability Improvement Projects Often Fail To Deliver Sustained Results

The Biggest Cost Element In Supply Chains Is Often The Cost Of Lost Sales

Beauty Lies In Simplicity Of Supply Chains

Are We Launching ‘Minimum Viable Products’ For Early Experimentation?

Quantum Of Inventory Buffer Change In Supply Chains Is Key To Maintaining A Balance Between Stability And Responsiveness

How Frequently Should We Resize The Supply Chain Inventory Buffers?

What Should Be The Trigger For Buffer Changes?

Sizing Of Inventory Buffers Is A Key Parameter To Improve Both Availability As Well As Freshness

Is Your Current Inventory Buffer Management System Dynamic Enough To Reflect Market Reality?

Poor Response Is Often Caused By Ineffective Supply Chain Design

Should We Aim For Perfection?

How To Overcome Inertia For Major Supply Chain Improvement Initiatives?

Does Your Major Supply Chain Initiative Compromise Any KPI?

How Effective Is Your Company’s Biggest Initiative?

Why Do We Love Google Maps?

Consumer Messaging Must Be Clear, Unambiguous, And Non-Conflicting

Customer Fulfilment Issues Are Systemic, Not Functional

Teams Learning Together Perform Better

Are You Stressed During Consumer Promotions?

Who Stole My Precious Semiconductor Chips?

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Who Is Stealing Your Critical Production Capacity?

Capacity Shortages Don’t Need Fresh Investments!

How Do You Respond To Surprises In Your Supply Chain?

At What Granularity Should We Plan Various Supply Chain Activities?

Are Your Supply Chain Improvements Focused On The Major Impact Areas?

Selecting Vendors On Least Cost Basis Is A Costly Affair!

Does Intuition Play A Role In Supply Chain Execution?

Supply Chains Have A Lot Of Grey Areas

Root Causes Of Various Supply Chain Symptoms Converge!

Is Product Freshness Important Only For Perishables?

How Should You Handle The Noise In Demand Signals?

Why Do We Resist Frequent Forecast Changes?

Improving Teamwork Amongst The Supply Chain Members Needs A Fundamental Rethink

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Less Is More In Supply Chains

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Tweaking The Planning Frequency Can Result In A Substantial Improvement In Supply Chain Performance

Cost Of Stockouts Is Often The Biggest Cost In Supply Chains

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How Should We Set The Supply Chain Improvement Targets?

Is Your Supply Chain Getting Increasingly Complex?

Should You Segment Your Supply Chain?

For Eliminating Bullwhip Effect In Supply Chains, Transparency Of Demand Is Necessary But Not Sufficient

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How High Are Your Supply Chain Ambitions?

Reliability Of Supply Chains Is Often Affected By Seemingly Innocuous Hygiene Factors

When Should You Allocate Stocks To Various Customer Channels?

Production Targets And Inventory Targets Have An Inherent Conflict

Do You Compromise On Flexibility To Gain A Reliable Supply Chain Performance?

Do You Witness A Gap Between Your Supply Chain Planning And Execution?

Do You Know The Short-Term Demand?

Is Your Supply Chain Stressed During New Product Introductions?

Have You Tried To Move Out Of Your Comfort Zone For Supply Chain Improvements?

Work Expands To Fill The Lead Time Available

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Where Should You Start Your Supply Chain Transformation Journey?

The Most Powerful Supply Chain Solutions Are Based On Inherent Simplicity

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Should FMCG Companies Switch From Primary To Secondary Sales For Demand Predictions?

When Should You Relook At The Design Of Your Supply Chain?

New Year Resolutions – Why Some Of Them Stick While Others Don’t?

Challenges In 2021 Pushed The Boundaries Of Agility Even Further

How Should The Q-Commerce Companies Look At Assortment And Availability?

Is Consumers’ Purchase Intention Influenced By Product Freshness?

Pushing Extra Stocks To Your Channel Partners Is A Win-Lose Strategy

Refrain From Jumping Straight Into The Optimization Models!

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Give Your New Products A Chance To Succeed

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Is Your Solution Customized To Solve Specific Pain Area Of The Customer?

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Who Is Your Most Demanding Customer?

Who Should Publish A Company’s Supply Chain Scorecard?

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Embrace Uncertainty

Good Habits Die Hard

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Transparency Across The Value Chain Is Important For Faster Response

Thank You, Murphy For Making Our Supply Chains More Robust

Company Policies Often Come In The Way Of Faster Response

Replenishment Orders Are Often Understated

How Do You Make Your Supply Chain More Responsive?

How Should You Balance A Serial Production Line?

How Effective Is Your Exception Monitoring Process?

Are You Comfortable In Sharing Your KPIs With Consumers?

Do Supply Chains Suffer From Murphy’s Law?

Supply Chain Improvement Projects Yield Benefits With A Time Lag

Supply Chain Excellence Requires Managing By Exception

Why Should We Forecast Consumer Demand?

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step

How Do You Break A Brick With Your Palm?

How do we internalize OTIF?

Are You Succeeding Too Often?

Is Your Supply Chain Designed For Concurrent Response To A Demand Shift?

Some Of Your Customers May Ask For Difficult Commitments

Customers Love Consistency Of Your Delivery

Constraints Are Useful

Would You Help Your Sales Team With A Disruptive Offering?

Is Your Quest For Perfection Delaying Certain Decisions?

Do We Need Segmentation In Supply Chain?

The Third Step Of A Change Management Effort Is The Key For Teams Buy-In

Resisting Change Is Like Holding Your Breath!

Does Your Supply Chain Focus Toggle Between Conflicting Priorities?

Can A System Operate Without Constraints?

When The Demand Patterns Change, Who Walks Away With The Additional Demand?

In Case Of A Sudden Demand Surge, Fast Response May Not Be Sufficient

How Do We Improve Flexibility In Logistics, Production And Procurement?

Are You Struggling With Too Many Initiatives?

Is Your Supply Chain Designed To Win At The Marketplace?

Agile Supply Chain Helps In Meeting Your Customers’ Ever Tightening Requirements

A Major Cause Of Supply Chain Issues Is The Rigidity In Forecasting

Tell-Tale Signs Of A Real Capacity Shortage Are Easy To Spot

Have You Identified The Right System Constraint?

What’s Holding You Back From Achieving More Of Your Goal?

Should We Motivate The Supply Chain Team For Excellence?

Excess Inventory Causing Stockouts?

What’s The Thread Connecting Your Integrated Planning Process?

Have You Created Inter-dependence With Your Supply Chain Partners?

Are You Leveraging The Power Of PDCA In Supply Chain Improvement?

How Much Inventory Should You Push Close To Consumers?

Do You Monitor Stockouts Over The Weekends As Well?

Are You Affected By The Shiny Object Syndrome?

Replenishment Process Creates Harmony Between Sales And Operations

How Quickly Can You Decipher A Shift In Demand Pattern?

MTS / MTO Classification Should Be Dynamic

Are We Managing The Current Chip Shortage As Per Toc Principles?

How Transparent Are Our Vendor Relations?

What’s Common In The Goals Of Your Supply Chain Team Members?

Production Scheduling Holds The Key To Product Availability And Freshness

Maharashtra’s Unlock Policy Is A Good Lesson In Segmentation

Do You Remember Little’s Law?

Are You Externalizing The Cause Of Supply Chain Underperformance?

People Are Good, Question The Process!

Believing Is Seeing!

Véjà Du - Open The Doors To Unlimited Improvements

Forecast Accuracy Continues To Be A Pain Point

Are You Visiting The Gemba Often?

Do You Encourage Multitasking?

How do we define product availability?

Are We Living With Compromises?

Flow Principles Would Help In Improving The Vaccination Experience

Problem Definition In Supply Chain Improvements Is Often Too Narrow

Rated Capacity Of An Equipment Is Often An Obstacle In Releasing More Capacity

Pharma Companies Should Improve Their Production Flexibility To Serve Better During The Pandemic

JIT In Supply Chain Works Only Under Certain Specific Conditions

Quality Is Not Free

Stepping Into Your Customers’ Shoes Is Often Sub-Optimal

Improvement Efforts Need To Be Directed And Targeted In Constraint Areas

Do You Face Occasional Shortage Of Components On Assembly Lines?

Why Is OTIF Such An Important Measure?

Quality Inspections Are Often Error Prone

Cutting Lead Times Actually Accelerates The Business

Improvement Is An Ongoing Process

Is Your Team Stressed At The Year End Today?

Do Demand Disruptions Cause Chaos In Your Supply Chain?

High Inventory Norms At CFAs Could Hamper The Service Level

Setup Times Can Be Reduced

Impact Of Adding Regional Warehouses On The Overall Inventory Is Positive

Good Supply Chain Solutions Look Simplistic ‘In Hindsight’

Do You Worry About Slips Between Supply Planning And Execution?

Are Your Freight Contracts Agile?

How Do You Measure Lost Sales?

Does Nature Buffer All Our Critical Requirements?

Does Nature Keep Inventory Buffers?

Convergence And Divergence Points Serve As Good Nodes For Inventory Buffer

Inventory Nodes In The Distribution Network Should Be Properly Defined To Get Agility Benefits

Inventory Compensates For Our Agility Gap

Frequency Of Execution Planning Is A Key Determinant Of Supply Chain Agility

Concept Of ‘Month’ Is Detrimental To Supply Chain Performance

‘Future Ready’ Initiatives Often Fail To Deliver The Intended Benefits

Focus On Functional Excellence Often Leads To Supply Chain Underperformance

‘Stockouts And Obsolescence Are Caused By Poor Forecast Accuracy’ Is An Erroneous Assumption

Erroneous Assumptions Can Make Your Supply Chain Look Very Complex

Supply Chain Transformation Is An Art

How Should We Implement Large Scale Supply Chain Transformation Projects?

There Are Two Distinct Needs To Improve Supply Chain Performance

Should We Improve Everything That Can Be Improved?

What Do Companies Do With The Rich Stream Of Data On Customer Orders?

Agile Supply Chains Help In Brand Building

Full Negative Impact Of Stockouts Is Rarely Understood

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Is Your Team Aligned On The Direction Of Solution?

Are You Settling For Mediocrity?

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Dashboards Should Be Actionable To Improve The Supply Chain Processes

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We Need To Press The ‘Reset’ Button At Times For Major Supply Chain Paradigm Changes

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SMED Must Be Internalized For Best Results

Extended Value Chains Should Be Designed For Harmony

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Supply Chain Improvement Initiatives Should Be Simple...

Credit For Improvement In Customer Service Level Should Go To...

Supply Chain Improvements Should Move Us Closer To The Goal

Transparency Of Consumer Demand Helps In Building Resilience

Cost Benefit Analysis For Active Interventions In Supply

Supply Chains Are Getting A Lot Of Management Attention These Days

Copying Others’ Improvements Builds A Great Organizational Culture

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Frozen Period In Production Schedule Adversely Impacts Availability

Large Production Batches Negatively Affect Availability And Freshness

Weekly Closure Of Warehouses Disrupts Flow

Infrequent Supplies Could Potentially Cause Flow Disruption

Consumer Centric Supply Chains Focus On Flow Improvement

Supply Chains Need To Be Consumer Centric

Agile Supply Chains Thrive On Flexibility In Production

Optimisation Efforts In Supply Chains Are Mostly Sub-Optimal

Inventory Control Actions Are Often Misdirected

Synchronised Response Of The Entire Supply Chain Is Vital