Supply Chain Management, SCM, SCRC Supply Chain Resource Cooperative, Poole College of Management, North Carolina State University

Our collaboration with NCSU’s Supply Chain Resource Cooperative continues to deliver real value to Lenovo’s business as we innovate and transform our global supply chain. I was very impressed with one of the SCRC project teams, which delivered an outstanding benchmarking study of industry standard practices associated with managing customer order fulfillment. The team compiled useful market data that yielded important insights into the dynamics and needs of key international markets. This type of supply chain project work is enabling Lenovo to adopt business processes and metrics that more closely align to industry best practices and better meet customer expectations, resulting in increased satisfaction and loyalty.

The students are able to apply their knowledge from their supply chain course and their background research for the projects and develop solutions. We have been able to implement recommendations from many of the projects and immediately see the results of the student’s efforts. The student projects bring outside perspectives to finding solutions to the issues with an academic focus. Duke Energy also has an opportunity to look at student performance in action, when we are selecting candidates for internships or future employment.

Each team has a Biogen Idec sponsor and a SCRC/NC State Faculty advisor. This collaboration has provided the teams with oversight and access to resources at Biogen Idec and NC State, thereby maximizing their productivity. The benefits of these projects to Biogen Idec include: (i) substantial price reductions of commodity materials through should-cost analyses, and (ii) enhancements to risk management tools, such as risk-mapping and key performance indicators, which have since been used by new product launch teams to identify risks and develop mitigation plans.

“Specifically, from the SCRC’s recommendations, Ministry has implemented an ABC Inventory System and an EOQ model with the following benefits. From the ABC, Ministry implemented a Kan-Ban supply replenishment system to better manage ‘C’ inventory items, resulting in reduction of .5 FTE as well as eliminating over 22,000 wasted steps, in just one of our fifteen hospitals. Furthermore, and most importantly, this allowed nurses the time to focus on better serving the patient rather than worrying about supplies.”