Supply Chain Management

One of the sessions which I attended and really liked was session on Golden Nuggets of Warehouse Productivity by Susan Rider (Rider & Associates) which primarily focused on outlining the key tools and ideas which can really help in driving significantly improved results in Warehouse operations. It was a refreshing reaffirmation of some of the challenges which I have seen our clients typically face in their warehouse operations. While a lot is blamed on the right data / information not being made available, often small yet effective steps are missed which can help in driving a lot better results, a lot faster. The session outlined great examples in almost all areas of warehouse operations, be it order picking (focusing too much on productivity vs. accuracy, improper rewards / recognition leading to high turnover and pushing for productivity leading to more picking errors – which are costlier to correct), or slotting / profiling (consider bad picking motions, heavy item slotting, slotting based on velocity – fast movers vs. slow movers, synchronization of receiving & slotting) or receiving (lift driver path, # of touches, labeling). Susan made excellent point on making right investment in personnel training which can not only help improve system adoption in the warehouse, but can also help improve labor productivity & reduce turnover.

Another session which I found interesting was the session on X-treme supply chains: Managing in the Times of Upheavl. While Richard Douglas from Sterling Commerce highlighted some key trends (increased volatility, 10+2 requirements) further forcing the supply chain operations to look for more rationalization, globalization and virtualization, Prof. Alexandar Verbareck & team scored high by converting the session into a global electronic supply chain game room with multiple teams working on responding to real time constraints posed on their supply chain. Through state of the art gaming technology modeling numerous supply chain scenarios, they demonstrated the power of simulation in creating a dynamic supply chain environment and improving decision making in a volatile environment. The session also demonstrated how / where technology can really shoulder business in reacting / adopting to changes in real supply chain world.

Coming from a technology solutions provider and a SI company offering integration and services, I was looking for connections back to the technology and I found that the sessions did provide deep insights into where / what technology can enable in supply chain operations – especially role of technologies such as BPMS which help in capturing and sorting out high priority processes and interactions within operations, but also help in sorting out what can be standardized (and hence automated) vs. where the human intelligence is applied. Another key take away for me was seeing the connection of increasing need for supply chain risk management (with ever increasing demand for more information – 10+2 requirement) and the “sense & alert” capabilities which technologies such as CEP (complex event processing) can offer leveraging underlying BPM/ BRMS systems.  The focus on analysis is now more comprehensive and end-to-end (as demonstrated in extreme supply chain session) and not limited to just a set of metrics and my observation was that clients today are not only looking at “how we are doing” but also at “ what should I do to correct” and this certainly creates the opportunities for improving supply chain visibility & collaboration solutions with precise and effective analysis and correction mechanisms. This is indeed exciting for my own group which focuses on bundling these new technologies with our supply chain solutions and services.

Would be curious to know your insights, if you attended the session. Overall, this was indeed exciting for me and I look forward to attending the CSCMP 2010 in San Diego.