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Should we use ‘Best Practices’ for designing a company’s Supply Chain?
Companies facing recurrent issues with their supply chain should have a relook at their supply chain design. It is quite possible that it was designed for a different context and the requirements have changed by now.
Let’s come to designing the supply chain afresh… from scratch. Very few companies actually undertake this activity and those who have done it have reaped outstanding benefits.
Very often, companies look at the current ‘Best Practices’ deployed by leading players and try to incorporate them in the design. Is it the right thing to do?
To start with, there is nothing like a ‘Best Practice’. Each such practice is for a specific context. We need to find out what is best for our context.
However, the ‘Best Principles’ are often applicable across varying contexts. Designing for customer focus, responsiveness, flexibility and sustainability hold good across most cases.
My suggestion is to incorporate ‘Best Principles’ instead of ‘Best Practices’ in your Supply Chain Design.