The Important gets Sacrificed for the Urgent

December 23, 2019

Entropy Busters® Series
Volume 2 | Number 12 | December 2019

Sacrificing the Important for The Urgent

Do you or anyone within your organization ever sacrifice the important for the urgent? This is one of the key challenges of many organizations. When you look at the team member’s challenges: e-mails, mobile phones and open work spaces, it’s nearly impossible to find the quiet time and space to complete meaningful work. This reality is echoed by team leadership. Many, if not all, say they would love to work on certain priorities…if they only had the time…

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Categories: Supply Chain Entropy Busters®

Plan “B” for China

October 17, 2019

Let’s start with the realization that plan “A” to relocate operations to China had a major flaw. If you moved manufacturing to China, India or any other low- cost producing country with the intention of importing goods back to North America or Europe (half a world away), then your plan was unsound!

I was taught to do everything possible to reduce lead-times and increase inventory velocity! Why is this important? Longer lead-times increase inventory. More inventory equates to less profits. Why? Because inventory delays fixing problems. When I see corporations chasing the labor “ghost”, I cringe! Labor typically accounts for 8-12% of the total cost of ownership. But too many leaders only have one play in their play book: to reduce labor costs by moving head count to low cost countries! They are missing 90% of the total cost of ownership!

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Categories: Supply Chain Entropy Busters®

When Ludicrous becomes Scandalous

October 3, 2019

I like to have fun with the words ludicrous and scandalous. By personal definitions are as follows:

Ludicrous; We’ve all been there… Billy always has the crazy ideas. Often, they’re actually worth looking into and determining if they have any substance. However, with any good brainstorming there are the occasional ludicrous ideas. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional ludicrous idea, just don’t spend resources on it.

Scandalous; Is spending time and money on that ludicrous idea…!

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Categories: Art Koch Profit Chain® Tips

5 Fatal Post Go-Live Mistakes that Will Destroy any Successful Systems Implementation.

September 27, 2019

I’m working with a client, and we are ready to Go-Live with a systems implementation for inventory optimization and replenishment planning. We’ve already successfully implemented demand planning, and at this moment, everything is pointing toward another successful launch.

However, spending a few minutes to brainstorm the factors that could go wrong in the post Go-live phase is beneficial. Here are my Top 5 mistakes.

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Categories: Art Koch Profit Chain® Tips