Design for Supply Chain

Sep 14, 2016

Outsourcing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Lessons from Nortel Networks

Jeff Townley, former Chief Procurement Officer at Nortel Networks, provided some fantastic insights in my MBA class this evening. In so doing, he shared some great insights about “Outsourcing: The…

Aug 26, 2016

Seeing is Believing: Debunking the Myths of 3D Printing at Materialise

I spent a fascinating day visiting the Materialise 3D Printing headquarters in Leuven, Belgium yesterday. In the process, I and the team learned a great deal about the realities of…

Aug 16, 2016

Supplier Co-Innovation: The Next Source for Economic Growth

We hear the words “innovation” as a source for growth in the economy over and over again. New ideas on how to manage business processes, digital technologies, ways of delivering value…

Jun 17, 2016

Nike Learns to Mass Customize Shoes While Near-Shoring

I had the opportunity to speak with a Nike executive about how the company has moved into the world of mass-customization. Many people have heard about their partnership with…

May 30, 2016

Mapping Product Genomes: The Life Blood of Supply Chains

One major technological development is being able to map genomes for products. A genome is all of a living thing’s genetic material. It is the entire set of hereditary…

Apr 27, 2016

SCRC Meeting Insights Part II: Management Principles for Executing Visibility Strategies

As organizations move towards visible, high velocity, transparent supply chains, a number of questions arise that are fundamental to the business, but which executive often struggle to answer with any…

Apr 11, 2016

Bo Andersson's Supply Strategy Collides With Vladimir Putin's Russia: The Performance Triangle Collapses

Automotive news seems to be coming up a lot lately. A story in the Wall Street Journal revealed that Bo Andersson, the current CEO of Russia’s largest car maker AvtoVAZ, plans…

Apr 4, 2016

Outsourcing : Tesla is Bucking the Trend

Debates over outsourcing are appearing with more frequency in the press. Companies have outsourced so many of their processes, through “Business Process Outsourcing”, that many now just sit as marketing…

Mar 9, 2016

Is it Time for to Move Away from "World Class Supply Chains"?

An excerpt from our book “The Procurement Value Proposition” got a nice section of CSCMP’s Supply Chain Quarterly edition this week. The book looks at what the future procurement capability will…

Jan 21, 2016

Nike partnership with Flex producing innovation coupled with digitization

I spent the last two days meeting with members of the Global Supply Chain and Manufacturing team at Nike, in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike has developed a partnership with NC State’s…