Supply Chain Management Review

SCMR, in collaboration with CSC Consulting and Michigan State University, has been conducting our annual “Survey of Supply Chain Progress” since 2002. The study is intended to track how well supply chain practitioners are advancing along the key metrics of people, processes, and technology. Maybe you’ve read our reports on the annual survey results, which usually appear in our October issues.

Why are we telling you this? Because we’ve just begun the 2008 survey and we want you to participate. Essentially, the survey questionnaire asks about practices in technology adoption, collaboration (internal and external), and alignment of supply chain and business strategy. We also ask about the supply chain’s contribution to top and bottom line performance, and inquire about specific technology and program initiatives underway.

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Last year I wrote a column about the so-called mating season that bears revisiting this time of year. I noted that my first boss in the publishing business used to refer to the spring and summer months as the mating season.  That was the time when we reporters would go to the various industry events like the NASSTRAC and American Trucking Associations meetings in the spring and the CLM (now CSCMP) and NITLeague in the fall. (How long ago was this, you ask? Well I started on a magazine called Traffic Management, a job title you hardly hear any more.)

Anyway, our mission was fairly stra...Read More

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A significant portion of SCMR readers (and viewers of this blog) work in a logistics- related job.  That’s why we’re always eager to see the results of the annual Salary Survey conducted by Logistics Management magazine, one of our sister publications at Reed Business Information.

The results for 2008, as in past years, bring a treasure trove of information and for thought.  As LM Senior Editor Jeff Berman reports in his comprehensive analysis of the latest findings (see http://www....Read More

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Ed Koch, a mayor of New York in the 1980s, had a particular way of benchmarking his performance as mayor of the city. As he traveled around the five boroughs, he would walk up to residents and simply ask, “How Am I doing?”  For Koch, that was a lot more effective, and probably a lot more accurate, than conducting expensive focus groups.

 

OK, that approach worked fine for hizzoner.  But how about supply chain managers that want to benchmark their performance against others.  How do they know what to me...Read More

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Where do you get your daily supply chain news?  Chances are, you turn to a number of sources—from popular general publications like the Wall Street Journal and Business Week to more targeted websites offered by the specialized business magazines and websites.

 

There’s one other source you should know about—a source that combines feeds from more than 200 entities and tailors the material based on what information is of interest to you.  This personalized news source is called SupplyChainDaily.com, www.supplyc...Read More

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At SCMR we always trying to promote the supply chain management and the people who work in this field (no surprise here, right, that the title of our magazine).   A big part of that is offering insights and information on how supply chain folks can get recognition and reward for what they bring to the table.  A few issues back we had a great article titled "Getting Supply Chain on the CEO's Agenda" that spoke exactly to that point at http://www.scmr.com/article/CA6457959.html.  It's definitely worth re-reading, or reading as the case might be.

Of course, many successful companies have long recognized the value of SCM.  Do the names Toyota, P&G, IBM, and Nokia come to mind.  (And we won't even bring up the two companies whose jerseys have been enshrined in ...Read More

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Want proof of the direct correlation between supply chain excellence and superior financial performance? AMR Research has it for you.

 

Every year the research firm does a report on its Top 25 supply chains. It’s an exhaustive piece of research that considers key financial metrics, collective insights from the AMR analysts, and input from a peer review panel of leading supply chain practitioners. Nokia topped the list in 2007, followed closely by Apple and then by a number of perennial leaders like Wal-Mart, P&G, IBM, and ...Read More

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We knew that the day of the $100 a barrel oil price would come.  And, sure enough, it happened on Jan. 2. 2008.  What a way to welcome in the New Year!

 

Whether the price of oil keeps escalating or hovers around the $100/barrel mark is anybody’s guess. But on thing seems certain: It’s not going to drop much any time soon.

 

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From a supply chain standpoint, the days leading up to Christmas and the holidays should be a happy (albeit a little hectic) time of year. All the toys and other goodies should be snugly nested in the retail outlet or tucked in the distribution center for online orders. For the most part, that’s the way things seem to be going this year.

But short-term memory can be hazardous to your supply chain health. It was just five short years ago this time of year that we were feeling the full force of the West Coast port strike of 2002. Some of the most popular Christmas presents were in short supply. Overall, the American supply chain overall, was thrown into a tailspin.

Given the significant pain caused by this disruption (estimated to be in the billions of dollars to the U.S. economy) we all should have learned a lesson. But recent research—includin...Read More

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The annual CSCMP Conference held last week in Philadelphia left me with one overwhelming impression: This is still the best bang for your educational buck in the logistics/supply chain space.  Where else do you have access to over 120 workshops, keynote sessions, literature tables, learning exchanges, and coffee and snacks at the break for a mere $1,400 thereabouts registration fee?

Some long-time CSCMPers (my new resolution is not to call it CLM anymore) have grumbled about the conference sponsorships being sold now and the increasing commercialism of the annual event. To be honest, I was a little worried about that, too.  But to CSCMP's credit, the advertising was low key and--most important--did not seem to interfere with the core educational mission of the event. Hey, we're all facing bu...Read More

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When I started working in the business-to-business publishing world, my first editor used to talk to me about the "mating season."  That was the period in the fall months of the year, when the big industry and professional associations would hold their annual meetings. It was a time for us journalists to attend the conference sessions, learn, network, and most importantly come back home with a raft of new leads and story ideas.

Now that were in the midst of the 2007 version of that season, I've been reflecting on whether industry and professional associations are as important in the grand scheme of things as they were 20 or even five years ago.  Based on my non-scientific method of actually attending events and observing an overall decline in attendance, my conclusion is that these events are n...Read More

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If there was ever a publication that could use a good set of bloggers, it's Supply Chain Management Review.  The reason: we only publish our print magazine nine times a year, and there’s a lot happening in the supply chain space in between issues.

 

That’s why the four blogs that we’ve launched in our redesigned web site (which we hope you like, by the way) fill an important void. I’ll be commenting on trends and interesting developments I see while traveling around the ...Read More

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