Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

It’s always funny to read about outraged customers on days like today (it also goes for any other bigger celebration, V-Day just being one of them). You order sthg to be delivered ON the day, and it never gets to you - or arrives a week later etc. No wonder that you are outraged and in extreme cases, swear to never buy sthg from the particular company again.

It’s even funnier to read the responses of companies. Too large orders. The supply chain cannot cope… ??? It’s not as if V-Day wouldn’t be predictable. It happens the same day every year. In that sense it is even easier than reacting to the first snow of the year (which even Helsinki hasn’t seen much of this year). Even buying behaviour is predictable: cards, flowers and chocolate, not much else. (However, chocolate lovers might want to look at this article on labour issues in the chocolate supply chain before making their choice. The same goes for flowers.)

There is a case to be made for retailers and distribution channels at large: concepts such as vendor managed inventory, or plainly, increased SC transparency might be called for. No wonder there are no supplies if POS data and/or even simple forecasts aren’t shared. But there is also a case to be made for chocolate manufacturers - V-Day happens every year, and even if your orders don’t reflect it, you can count on consumers wanting more of your stuff. Outsmarting wholesalers and retailers might not be a bad idea in this case. Both up- and downstream - where are the lessons learned from the bullwhip effect?

Gyöngyi

How would you explain a supply chain to someone who’s never heard that term? For fun I asked for metaphors at the very beginning of a SCM course. The responses were just stunning! Some were more close to actual definitions (talking about flows, circles etc.), but others were beautiful analogies… Thanks for the people who agreed to share them, here they come:

“Supply Chain Management is like picking up a paper clip from a can or a bin on a regular work desk - one never knows how many paper clips are connected to the first one, in which order, of which colour or even how they’re connected. Then, clearing the mess up, one learns about the links and the ways the paper clips are connected to each other.” (Alex Kajanti)

“A bundle of grapes, where the individual grapes are all conected to the stem, The stem is the “mother company” and the grapes are the suppliers. Supply chain management looks at ex. the efficiensy of how the individual grape contributes to the stem.” (Richard Varis)

“I could describe SCM as a city, were different areas or points of interests represent companies in the supply chain, and the traffic represents flows of goods, information etc. For a city, smoothness in traffic is important as is different flows in a SC.” (Casimir von Frenckell)

“I´ll probably use a system of the human body, maybe the blood system: it gets all the organes connected (oxygen, hormones, aliments) and allows the whole “machine” to work (live actually)” (Mahjoub Faraj)

“Metaphor: human body; it does not work well as a whole if all the different parts are not working together. A network of different functions” (Jenni Tuukkanen)

“Rainbow” (Ville Kangasmuukko)

Any other metaphors that come to your mind? If so, post them as a reply!

Gyöngyi