At Thanksgiving, gratitude for supply chain wisdom

On this, the day before Thanksgiving, one thing we’re grateful for is experts who study a topic and reach similar conclusions, especially concerning the future of electronics supply chains. There’s something reassuring in this. Either great minds think alike or we’re all eating from the same bowl of stuffing. You be the judge.

Exhibit one: At a recent supply chain conference in Silicon Valley, Prof. Haul Lee, a supply chain expert at Stanford University, suggested the 21st century supply chain must be agile, adaptable and aligned among partners. Based on his research, he’s been espousing this theme for years, most prominently in a Harvard Business Review article of October 2004 entitled, “The Triple-A Supply Chain.”

(A free version can be found here.)

His analysis: Rising demand and supply uncertainties require agility; shorter product and technology cycles need adaptability, and outsourcing and multiple supply chain partners –customers and suppliers from end to end — require alignment. By “alignment” he means win-win-win arrangements among all partners. “Instead of company to company competition, we are now in an era of supply chain to supply chain competition,” Lee said.

Exhibit two: In a recent blog posting, Kinaxis, a strategic partner of Technology Forecasters, brings to our attention recent research by CAPS Research, A.T. Kearney and the Institute of Supply Management that identifies four areas supply chain managers must tackle in the years ahead: Delivering more innovation from suppliers; contributing more broadly to revenue generation; anticipating and managing supply risk to ensure business continuity, and expanding the breadth and impact of cost management efforts.

Exhibit three: At Technology Forecasters, our own research and analysis strongly suggests the need to extend Lean principles outside the single enterprise and across all supply chain partners. In our judgment this is just starting to happen, and is the direction electronic supply chains must move.

We think there’s a great deal of commonality in these three exhibits. Perhaps they track with your own thinking. While you’re finishing up that turkey and dressing sandwich, drop us a line and let us know.

Posted by Bill Roberts, November 21st, 2007

Filed to Supply chain management