Of the thousands of moving parts and hundreds of different roles across the supply chain, few are more directly impactful to the bottom line than that of the buyer. If buyers are successful, on-time delivery improves and inventory capital is reduced. If they fail, the company can experience enormous financial losses due to shortages, work stoppage, and days of “firefighting.” And like many critical business roles, buyers’ days are so full that work often bleeds into evenings and weekends.

Continue Reading “It All Starts with Buyers: Supplier Performance and Inventory Optimization” →

How do you use supplier insights to improve performance in your supply chain? This is a transcript of the Supply Chain Insights webinar conducted by Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights, called The Journey of Becoming First, Using Supplier Insights to Improve Performance. The webinar recording is available here.

Continue Reading “The Journey of Becoming First: Using Supplier Insights to Improve Performance” →

When manufacturers talk about inventory turnover, they’re referring to how quickly their company can process the parts inventory in its warehouse. Most track it by turnover ratio, which equals the cost of goods sold (COGS) divided by inventory. The higher the ratio, the faster the company will reduce inventory and the less money is tied up in inventory capital. Additionally, the company saves on storage costs and is better able to avoid part obsolescence.

In the world of supply chain, buyers are often focused on avoiding supply shortages. After all, an unexpected disruption has the capability to completely halt production, costing the company millions in expedition fees, lost revenue, and work inefficiencies. In this light, it makes perfect sense for a buyer to prioritize higher inventory levels over inventory reduction strategies. No one wants to be responsible for inadvertently causing a shortage. Continue Reading “Reduce Inventory While Preventing Shortages With These 5 Rules” →

This is a transcript of the Supply Chain Insights podcast conducted by Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights, on her Straight Talk program, called Aligning Flows Across Manufacturing: An Interview with LeanDNA’s Richard Lebovitz. The podcast recording is available here.

Continue Reading “Supply Chain Insights Podcast on Aligning Manufacturing Flows [Transcript]” →

Picture this, Supply Chain Leaders: your site just received a mandate from your corporate office to reduce inventory this year by 10% across the board. Now it’s time to scramble to develop and implement a strategy to optimize inventory. But where do you start?!

Does this situation sound familiar to you? At LeanDNA, we see this all the time. Based on our experience, we’ve compiled a summary of the four must-have reports that can help you quickly organize and attack any inventory reduction initiative. Continue Reading “4 Critical Reports to Help You Optimize Inventory” →

Does your factory have warning signs? You know, those bright yellow triangles? Perhaps it has an exclamation mark for caution, or a lightning bolt to represent high voltage area. Maybe it even features a skull & cross bones to signal that dangerous chemicals (or pirates) are present. No matter the sign, they clearly mean one thing: WARNING.

As a supply chain manager, you probably wish you had a sign like that for your team to help them with the purchase order process. Maybe it would be a triangle with a broken down delivery truck meant to represent an impending shortage. Whatever it would look like, it’d be amazing to give your buyers a sign for which POs could leave you at risk.

Well, there may not be a physical symbol you can place in your office, but there are plenty of warning signs to look out for. Here are four warning signs your POs could cause trouble. Continue Reading “Warning Signs Your POs Could Cause Trouble” →

Inventory ties up a massive amount of working capital – to the tune of $459 billion dollars. That makes up nearly 3% of the entire United States GDP! Successful inventory management is critical to becoming a leader in supply chain in every industry vertical. And manufacturers are looking for solutions to drive inventory management improvement.

What does it take to improve inventory turns by 200% or more? Continue Reading “Inventory Management Maturity Curve: How Sophisticated Supply Chains Improve Inventory Turns by 200 Percent” →