Get measurement right to solve supply chain’s toughest challenges

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the November 2023 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

November 2023

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the NextGen Supply Chain Awards in Chicago. It was my first time attending the conference, which was in its fifth year, and I came away impressed with both the content and the quality of professionals I met in Chicago. This year’s conference—Strategies for a Digital Future—featured nearly 50 speakers and included CEOs and senior vice presidents, founders and innovators, leading academics and researchers, and top consultants. Over two days of the event at the Chicago Athletic Association, we learned more about artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, robotics and machine learning, fulfillment…

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For more than a century, British cycling teams underperformed on the world’s biggest stages—the Olympics and Tour de France. Since the inaugural Olympics, they had won only a handful of gold medals, and no British rider had ever worn the yellow jersey triumphant on the Champs-Élysées. So underwhelming was the Brits’ performance that some European bike makers refused to sell them bikes, fearing it would blemish their brands. And despite pouring money into cutting-edge training and technology, success remained out of reach.

Mired in mediocrity, the Brits hired Dave Brailsford in 2003 as their performance director. Brailsford avoided the go-to push for a stirring, fast-tracked turnaround, stressing instead a strategy he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains.” Everyone would pursue small, incremental improvements. Getting 1% better everywhere, he argued, would deliver the standout performance needed to win gold. Consider a few of these marginal gains.

• Riders wore biofeedback sensors to discern what worked and what did not.
• Outdoor riders donned indoor suits as they tested a tad more aerodynamic in a wind tunnel.
• Massage gels were split tested to assess which one led to the fastest muscle recovery.

So, what happened as these marginal gains came together? In the 2008 Olympics, British teams won 60% of cycling’s gold medals. In 2012, they set nine Olympic and seven world records, dominating the gold count. That same year, Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France. Two other British riders, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, won five of the next six Tours. In the two decades after Brailsford joined the team, Great Britain became the biggest winner on cycling’s biggest stages.

Perhaps you’re thinking: “That’s a stunning track record, but marginal gains have been part of the SCM toolkit since the 1980s JIT revolution. What’s new?” You’re right. Kaizen has been around for decades. Your takeaway is in the implementation details. Too often companies pursue newfangled strategies only to fail. Brailsford’s brilliance is how he used measurement to enable strategy. He got measurement right, something we have seldom seen in 30 years working with supply chain leaders. Measurement is the missing link in the quest for success.

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