Well, this blog of mine is different in many ways, from the ones that I have posted so far. I am not going to write too much to describe this topic but I am more interested in knowing what you all know. I want to reach out to each one of you to know what you have seen in industry either as an operations guy or as a consultant. Even if you have not seen it being practiced in real life, I am sure you would have some serious opinion on this matter.
The topic is very simple and well-intuitive. My question is: Have you seen “lean principles” being practiced in supply chain in any industry (preferably consumer goods/discrete manufacturing). I know the term “lean” has been used or mis-used very often, but I am open to hear anything from you – just take a pick, think and find out instances from your experience, that you can bucket under being “lean in supply chain”. Do not just restrict yourself to manufacturing...
Let me give you one example: recently, I had a discussion with a Supply Chain Head of a leading consumer goods organization and they intend to implement a “pull based” system in their supply chain.
Consumer goods companies have been pioneers in supply chain and their performance in supply chain has been best-in-class by any standards. Traditionally, we have seen organizations especially, consumer goods, running a typical push model where sophisticated forecasting is done to predict demand, goods are manufactured and distributed to various POS locations as per the dispatch plan. The product is actually pushed down in supply chain and focus is to improve forecast accuracy because that really drives everything else.
On the contrary, here is this company that would like to implement “pull system” and do away with forecasting to the maximum possible extent. To me, this is one true example of being lean in supply chain. I have always seen companies focusing on improving traditional push model that I described, but I have never seen a “pull model” running anywhere and hence this blog…
Going back to my question to all of you:
Do you think such practices exist in companies (esp. consumer goods)? I don’t know any company implementing a pull methodology in supply chain (please provide examples other than Toyota)? How do you marry push and pull in the supply chain, and where does it exist? Where is the Customer decoupling point? What tools do you use? How do you drive this initiative – what are the critical success factors?
Please share your experiences and insights – looking forward to hear from this great group of supply chain leaders…
