Welcome to another round of the wild west. The advent of blockchain technology is ushering in a new era of innovation and change. Managers are facing unknown terrain but it is terrain that contains a wealth of value for manufacturing, services, supply chain and project management. This month we have a Q&A session with Dr…. Read more »

In our last blog we stated that there is no simple formula for calculating the safety stock required for a given fill rate if the reorder quantity is greater than one.  In this blog, I’ll provide detail on correct safety stock calculation and some considerations when trying to optimize safety stock for a set of parts…. Read more »

Inventory is a great fascination for managers. Primarily because it is a fairly flexible asset that companies can use to manage their financial performance. This also makes inventory a source of poor control because short term financial reporting considerations often overrule good operations control practices. I worked at a company where inventory was stored in… Read more »

Ever get the feeling that you as a manager or your company’s managers are driving variability and chaos in your company through uncertain decisions and conflicting goals? You’re not alone. The Vice President of Manufacturing of a multi-billion company once reported that Production had done a fantastic job implementing Lean Manufacturing to reduce cycle times but there… Read more »

“‘Eliminate Waste’ is a nonsensical slogan.1” – Shigeo Shingo Performance improvement strategies that revolve around the notion of reducing non-value-added activities continue to be popular. Unfortunately for the multitudes of companies relying on them, these strategies are seriously flawed and often result in huge wastes of time and effort. The “value-added” focus is one of… Read more »