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Demand Driven and Supply Chain Maturity

supply chain maturity - ladders

We often get questions or comments about the level of supply chain maturity required for companies to be ready to implement DDMRP and realize the significant operational benefits it brings. These questions are sometimes paradoxical.  Many companies tell us things like: “DDMRP sounds interesting, and well-suited to our environment, but we must first achieve more … Read more

Small Data vs Big Data for Supply Chains

Instead of Big Data, Why Don’t We Take Care of our Small Data First? Big data and advanced analytics are front page news in the supply chain and have been on the rise for years in the vocabulary of consulting firms and software vendors.  Accumulating masses of information, passing it through the mill of statistical … Read more

What is the Use of Forecasting?

If the forecasts are wrong, what is the point of forecasting?  The subject of forecasting has been stirring the supply chain community for ages. We have invested a lot, and continue to invest in this subject, with a renewed interest in the age of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data. We are keeping our fingers crossed: perhaps … Read more

Pull Flow Systems for All

Pull Flow, an Old Story… 

In 1987, as a young engineer at Philips, I had the chance to take part in a study trip to Japan and visit about ten companies there. In most of them you could see in each workshop card boards. In one of the factories I asked our guide what it was. He was astonished that I asked the question – it was so obvious: it is a Kanban board, to replenish supplies. That is normal. It was a non-event, a practice that was not questionedhad been in place for decades… but almost absent at the time from our western factories. Kanban dates to the ’50s. Drum-buffer-rope dates back to the ’80s. These are old concepts. Are they adapted to our modern, technological age?  

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DDMRP vs MRP: Long Live Independence

In one of my previous lives, I was responsible for a supply chain where most of the suppliers were in Asia, supplying our European factories and distribution centres by sea. Historically our service was poor and our inventory was overflowing everywhere. Our Chinese or Thai suppliers only accepted monthly orders, and imposed at least 2 months of firm orders on their production plan … Read more

The Bottom Line Benefits of DDMRP

In my last post, I talked briefly about the benefits of being demand driven using Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP): lower inventory levels and increased service levels.

You may be thinking, “Yeah, Ivan, that all sounds good, but isn’t that what other methodologies like Lean Manufacturing were supposed to do? What’s the difference here?”

If so, you’d be right. DDMRP exploits some of the principles found in other methodologies, but it also modifies them and arranges them into a consistent, organized, and easily executable process. The first key principle, and the one that separates DDMRP from many other approaches, is that of decoupling stock buffers.

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Don’t Trust Your MRP Supply Chain Systems?

FORD T

What’s the greatest manufacturing innovation in history? I’ll bet a lot of you immediately thought, “the assembly line.” Introduced by Henry Ford in 1913, the assembly line revolutionized manufacturing, reducing the time it took to build a car from half a day to just over two hours.

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