Supply Chain View

UPDATE 20/03/08: Since I wrote this post, Hopp has published a print version of the book with McGraw-Hill and moved from Northwestern to the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. As a result, the download that was available free from the Northwestern website is no longer available. Apologies to anyone who has […]

A couple of weeks ago I was writing about the cultural aspects of Lean. Then a glut of work hit me and a lot of stuff had to give: work-life balance, Supply Chain View, … This happens occasionally due to the demands of consulting project work, but it has made me sensitive of late to […]

With the help of some colleagues I have compiled a list of recommended books for those interested in all things Supply Chain. I will be adding to these as time goes by, and I will link in any reviews. I realise even as I type this that there are a lot more books on my […]

I was interested to find an article in this month’s Logistics & Transport Focus headed “No more lean times: why inventory is not waste and warehouses add value”. The author, Steve Sordy, has chosen a title that is a kind of teasing of the more dogmatic of lean devotees – British culture has little patience […]

My recent vacation in Morocco has inspired this post about the requirements for holding inventory in the retail supply chain. As I strolled around the souks – the traditional markets and shopping districts of North Africa and the Middle East – I reflected on the sheer quantity of stuff in the shops. Whether it was […]

I have just read a paper published in the Jan 07 edition of the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS) entitled “A new approach of forecasting intermittent demand for spare parts inventories in the process industries”. The authors – ZS Hua, B Zhang, J Yang and DS Tang from the University of Science and […]

In December 2006 I presented seminar for the CILT on Supply Chain Inventory Management, and this very simple demonstration comes from that presentation. It is designed to highlight the different levels of forecast accuracy that we can achieve for slow and fast SKUs. (As I mentioned in my post from 29 Nov 06, estimating forecast […]

Let’s face it, we never think our forecasts are accurate enough. We suspect there must be a better way out there. Often this is down to the simple fact that forecasting is never precise. How can it be? I often think that one of the most important eureka moments for a supply chain professional is […]

Welcome to Supply Chain View, a regular look at current supply chain issues. I’m Martin Arrand, an experienced supply chain and Lean consultant from the UK. I have a policy of keeping the Supply Chain View voice separate and independent, so I don’t publicise here who my my clients are. I work on projects both […]