Supply Chain Management Article Library

Jun 24, 2003

Six Sigma: Where is it now?

Six sigma is a statistical level that represents 3.4 defects per million. Six Sigma is a process that has been around since the late 1970s and mid-1980s. It was developed…

Jun 19, 2003

Problems Facing the New Pharmaceutical Industry – Part I

As the 21st century begins, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has entered an era of explosive growth in innovation, investment and competition. At the same time, both established players and…

Jun 10, 2003

A TaylorMade Supply Chain

Putting a high-tech golf club in the hands of a high-handicap golfer will not necessarily produce a world class golfer. Similarly, simply adding technology to a poorly designed supply chain…

Jun 4, 2003

Aligning Supply and Demand Management: Meeting summary

Thank you again for coming to the Supply Chain Resource Consortium meeting on May 1-2, 2003. Those who attended hopefully learned a lot from the industry speakers and student projects.…

Jun 2, 2003

Rebuilding Iraq – Challenges to the EPC Industry

Recently, Bechtel Corporation was awarded a major contract to repair roads, hospitals, schools, and other foundational elements in post-war Iraq. Although critics claimed that this award was based on “personal…

May 29, 2003

The Global Information Economy

Between 2000 and 2001, China’s spending on information and communications technology grew faster than any other country, 27%. The following is reprinted with permission from the World Information Technology and…

May 22, 2003

Response to a Proponent of Reverse Auctions

A recent reader of the results of our study published in Inside Supply Management took issue with our results, and noted the following: “As an experienced sourcing professional and current…

May 15, 2003

Procurement Technology and Trust

For the average company, purchased products and services account for more than 60% of their total costs (1). That makes procurement a likely candidate for cost reduction efforts. Procurement technology…

May 6, 2003

Implementing a Data Warehouse: Results of Dr. Payton’s Action Research with Solectron

In a 2001 project with Solectron, Dr. Fay Payton and a handful of students tracked data warehouse implementation for 8 months. During the last months (March-May 2002), the authors conducted…

Apr 29, 2003

The IT Strategic Sourcing Four-Step

“An overwhelming majority of CIOs say their enterprises cannot handle their IT services alone and are willing to create partnerships with service providers. But few CIOs have strategies to work…