Supply Chain Strategy

Jun 29, 2012

Upsides and Downsides of Logistics Clusters

As Yossi Sheffi pointed out at the SCL Europe conference last week, logisics clusters have positive AND negative consequences as well.  One of the biggest negatives is the environmental impact,… 

Jun 20, 2012

Emphasizing PEOPLE and PROCESS in Beiersdorf's global supply chains

I sat in on a panel debate today at the World Trade Group meeting for Supply Chain and Logistics Europe in Berlin.  During the panel, I had an opportunity to… 

Jun 10, 2012

News from the UK: Coffee with Gerard Chick

Had coffee with my friend Gerard Chick while in London this week, who is on the research team at CIPS (the Chartered Institute of Professional Supply Management).  Gerard and I… 

Jun 1, 2012

A new way of looking at the biopharma industry

My new book comes out this month, which focuses on the biopharma supply chain and the numerous trends and challenges that exist today, and which will continue to occur down… 

May 8, 2012

Socialization: An Important Dimension of Supply Chain Relationships

The ability to capture value from your business relationships is increasingly seen as critical differentiator in firm success (Cousins et al., 2006). Much of the strategic purchasing literature addresses the… 

May 1, 2012

Talent Management Insights from SCRC Meeting

A number of great presentations from today’s SCRC meeting focused on how different organizations are thinking about managing their talent supply chain.  I helped to set the stage by applying… 

Apr 18, 2012

Building the Integrated Delivery System at Honeywell Aerospace

I had an opportunity to meet with the executive team at Honeywell Aerospace in Phoenix this week, and learned a great deal about the interesting challenges that exist in the… 

Apr 10, 2012

How to Read the Inventory Tea Leaves…

An article in the WSJ provides an interesting set of perspectives on what increasing or shrinking inventory numbers might mean in terms of an organization’s supply chain performance.  As I… 

Apr 4, 2012

Random Thoughts on the Impact of Frugal Innovation on the Supply Chain

In this week’s Economist, an article by Schumpeter provides some interesting views on the emerging concept of “frugal innovation”.  He cites the example of the Tata Nano, a $2,000 car… 

Apr 2, 2012

Lean Aerospace Supply Management Developments

In a recent set of interviews, I had an opportunity to learn about some of the recent developments in the aerospace industry, that is happening in both commercial and defense…