A recent visualization over on Axiis, the open source data visualization framework, displays the W3.org’s Historical Browser Statistics from January 2002 to August 2009. It’s definitely worth checking out … you can see the rise and fall of Mozilla, Netscape, IE, AOL, Opera, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome over time.
Hat-Tip to Matthieu Cormier, of Cocoa Mondo, a fellow Haligonian.
The Sourcing Innovation Resource Site, always immediately accessible from the link under the “Free Resources” section of the sidebar, continues to add new content on a weekly, and often daily, basis — and it will continue to do so.
The following is a short selection of upcoming webinars and events that you might want to check out in the coming weeks:
| Date & Time | Webcast |
| 2009-Dec-14
10:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Overview of Nanotechnology Developments in the UK & China Sponsor: SME |
| 2009-Dec-15
11:00 GMT-08:00/AKDT/PST |
How Microsoft Dramatically Increased Spend Under Management Globally, Presented by Microsoft and Denali Group Sponsor: SIG |
| 2009-Dec-16
12:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Virtualization and Cloud Security Fundamentals Sponsor: Altor Networks |
| 2009-Dec-16
8:30 GMT-08:00/AKDT/PST |
EU REACH For Article Manufacturers – an in-depth introduction Sponsor: Design Chain Associates, LLC |
| 2009-Dec-16
11:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Why Being Demand Driven Matters for Retailers Sponsor: AMR |
| 2009-Dec-16
14:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Urgent Purchasing: How One Procurement Professional Took Matters into his Own Hands to Get Spend Under Control Sponsor: Coupa Software |
| 2009-Dec-16
10:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Tracking and Tracing Serialized Items With SAP Solutions for Auto-ID Sponsor: RFID Journal |
| 2009-Dec-16
14:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
ECM in 2010 Sponsor: AIIM |
| 2009-Dec-17
14:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
How to Take Control of Your Physical and Virtual Data Center Sponsor: EMA |
| 2009-Dec-17
13:00 GMT+08:00/AWST |
Enhance Business Agility through Demand-Driven Strategies Sponsor: AspenTech |
| 2009-Dec-17
11:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST |
Field Study Results Discussion: Who owns the practice of Risk, Quality and Compliance in Retail? Sponsor: AMR |
| Dates | Conference | Sponsor |
| 2010-Jan-11 to 2010-Jan-12 |
Retail’s Big Show New York, New York, USA (North-America) |
NRF |
| 2010-Jan-12 to 2010-Jan-12 |
Negotiating in Tough Times: Navigating Challenging Negotiations During an Economic Downturn Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (North-America) |
Corpoate United |
| 2010-Jan-17 to 2010-Jan-19 |
The Leadership Forum 2010 San Diego, California, USA (North-America) |
RILA |
| 2010-Jan-18 to 2010-Jan-21 |
World Future Energy Summit Abu Dhabi (Middle-East) |
Reed Exhibitions |
| 2010-Jan-19 to 2010-Jan-20 |
SMC3 2010 Winter Conference: Supply Chain’s Look Ahead Atlanta, Georgia, USA (North-America) |
SMC3 |
| 2010-Jan-21 to 2010-Jan-22 |
Supply Chain & Logistics Roadshow in Tianjin Tianjin, China (Asia) |
GSCC |
| 2010-Jan-22 to 2010-Jan-22 |
Lean: The New Business Technology Imperative * virtual * (North-America) |
Forrester |
They are all readily searchable from the comprehensive Site-Search page. So don’t forget to review the resource site on a weekly basis. You just might find what you didn’t even know you were looking for!
And continue to keep a sharp eye out for new additions!
This series discusses the recent report from CAPS Research on “the role of optimization in strategic sourcing”. The primary goal is to highlight, clarify, and, in some cases, correct parts of the report that are important, confusing, or incorrect to insure that you have the best introduction to strategic sourcing decision optimization that one can have.
In this chapter, the benefits of using optimization with reverse auctions are discussed and a number of case studies are presented. Specifically:
Next, the chapter discussed the challenge of tiered and bundled bids. They are challenging in a number of respects — they are a challenge to define, they can be a challenge to explain, they are often a challenge to “normalize”, and they can be a big challenge to implement for even sophisticated developers — but not as challenging as the report would have you believe. After all, a few providers support both of these bid-types, and at least two do so in their self-service tools.
The statement that only after the model is solved can it be discovered if the business allocated to a supplier would have been sufficient to earn a discount is false! While the specific solution being used, by the company in the example, may not have supported discounts, a number of solutions on the market fully support tiered and volume discounts, which include the type described within the example. These solutions support models which dynamically update the total cost when a threshold is reached. (I have personally designed and implemented two solutions with this capability, one of which is still on the market.)
The one thing that should have been noted, but wasn’t, is that implementing these discounts usually requires a sophisticated set of binary equations. If discounts are required in bulk, the size and complexity of the model will increase significantly and this can negatively impact solve time in a big way.
In addition, not only are tiered and bundled bids the most common form of creative bidding supported by many optimization applications, but they are also the most powerful when combined with discounts and used appropriately.
Finally, there’s no reason that the optimization cannot be applied on-line, in real-time, during the auction. If you’re buying a commodity, or if you can completely specify your business rules and constraints up-front, you can run an optimization-enhanced auction and make (automated) contract offers immediately after the optimization completes. While most providers don’t yet have this capability, Trade Extensions, for example, does. Now, the model has to be of a size and complexity that can be solved in real-time during the auction, but thanks to the advances in processing power and solution algorithms that have materialized over the past five years, you’d be surprised just how big the model can get and still solve in the 15 to 30 minutes typically allocated for a mid-size real-time auction.
Next Part VIII: Challenges / Issues
A recent article in Industry Week outlined “Six Recurrent Benefits for Social Response Capitalists” that can improve both your top and bottom lines while making your target market feel good. (In other words, it’s a win any way you look at it.) You see, when you teach your engineers and your brand experts to compete on price, quality and social needs, a tidal wave of positive innovation occurs. And this innovation comes with the following benefits:
A recent Inside Supply Management article on “The Global Reality of Geopolitics” noted that terrorism, war, disease and political unrest are just some of the geopolitical pressures that supply management executives face today. The geopolitical risks for most multi-nationals are increasing daily, and most of their supply chains, which still assume flexible JIT models will always be possible, are still not prepared.
To prepare your supply chain, you need to identify, assess, and put a mitigation in place for each likely or significant threat. One way to assess the threats, according to Celina Realuyo of CBR Global Advisors, is to look at its impact from a space, time, and depth perspective. With globalization, unless multiple countries adopt the same protectionist measures, there are no boundaries. As a result, disease outbreaks can spread rapidly around the globe. Today’s marketplace is 24/7. As a result, most leaders are in response mode instead of strategic planning mode. A problem usually produces multiple instantiations as it ripples through the chain. Thus, a solution that solves a second level effect may not solve the base problem. Thus, if a problem is unrestricted by boundaries, relevant to the market, and related to manufacturing, it’s probably significant as its repercussions could quickly spread throughout the supply chain. Another way to assess threats is to consult experts to assess severity and likelihood.
So how do you mitigate the threats? According to the article you:
And it’s not a bad start. However, I was really disappointed that there was no mention of Optimization, which is very relevant in risk analysis. You see, where risk is concerned:
Thus, the only way to come up with a mitigation plan that’s going to truly minimize the cost of future supply chain disruptions is one that uses simulation, modelling, and optimization. Now, it’s true that there’s very few solutions on the market to help you at this point, but it’s where you need to get to. Decision Optimization isn’t just for Logistics, Sourcing, and Supply Chain Planning. It’s for much, much more.