Category Archives: Technology

Six Steps to Supply Chain Visibility

A recent clear goal sidebar on “12 steps to supply chain visibility” in Stores magazine outlined 12 steps a company can take for boosting transparency in the supply chain. What’s important to note is that half of these steps revoled around data, data availability, and new technology — something this blog continually advocates. Specifically:

  • increase data quality
    as this allows for better analysis
  • create an information hub
    so that all information can be accessed from one central location
  • be aware of when your suppliers’ labor contracts are expiring
    as this could be a disruption in the making
  • develop visibility solutions that are flexible enough to accommodate multiple fulfillment models
    since multiple shipment types and routes might be required to prevent disruptions
  • rack costs like freight, insurance, duties, taxes and other government charges
    because all data is relevant
  • implement route planning software
    to optimize transportation and freight costs

There is no substitute for good systems and good data.

Vendor Lies

ComputerWorld recently ran a great article on tech relationships gone wrong entitle “lies my vendor told me” which is a must read for anyone buying technology because, you guessed it, some vendors will lie (lie, lie) to get that sale.

We can scale to that level of service.

Just ask the retailer who grew four hundred percent in 4 years only to lose 48 hours of uptime during the critical Christmas season.

Yes we have expertise with this third party system that our product can be configured to run on.

Just ask the publishing company which fell for the vendor’s claims hook, line, and sinker when it said that it had expertise to install and configure remote Citrix systems which its product could be configured to work on (but which it had never done itself).

Yes you need a firewall.

Even though you have no critical data and no data worth stealing.

Of course your IT department can support this!

Why else would we say that you don’t need their involvment? (Could it be because they know for a fact your IT department can’t support the application and that, if you ask, the deal is squashed.)

Yes our cloud platform is mature!

Even though we just bought it from a third party, who threw it together with glue and copper wire, and neither party has any idea how to properly build, maintain, and provide a cloud platform.

Don’t Fear New Technologies

This byline in a recent Industry Article on “five things you need to know about material handling” is an article in itself. It’s bad enough that most companies think they can’t afford new technologies and put upgrades off until they’re so far behind the curve that the upgrade is a multi-million dollar effort because everything has to be upgraded, and usually all at once, resulting in a big bang project that, more often than not, blows up in their face. It’s even worse when they fear new technologies. Good technology saves time, money, and enables the identification of opportunities that would never be noticed otherwise.

This isn’t to say that you should buy every module that a sales person will throw at you, but that you should look for the solutions most appropriate to your needs, buy them, implement them, and profit from them. Becuse, without the right technology, as the article points out:

    • you’ll never know you have too many lift trucks
      which results from not optimizing fleet management for maximum uptime and efficiency
    • you’ll never know that some trade-offs are only illusions
      and disappear when you use optimization to identify a third transportation option that saves time and money
    • you’ll never know that capital equipment can be more than capital equipment

and that it can be an ongoing expense as the initial cost of most equipment these days is only a fraction of the total lifetime cost when maintenance and operation is factored into account, and this is as true for computing technology as it is for lift trucks; an average PC costs much more to operate over its lifetime with today’s energy costs than it costs to buy it

So don’t fear new technology. However, remember that a commodity is a commodity and you’re not looking for a partner. I have to disagree with the author, who works for a vendor, on this point. Sometimes you just need a PC, or, in this case, a lift-truck.

Build a Better Beer Widget? Yes We Can!

A recent article over on CNet, which describes the beer widget as the hollow plastic ball that rattles around the can and is largely responsible for the foamy head on the just-poured brew, highlights how a university mathematician from Limerick, Ireland has discovered a way to create a more efficient, less expensive widget.

The research, which looked into the best way to harness the gas pockets trapped within cellulose fibres as (starting) points for bubbles to grow and release when a can of beer is cracked and poured, built a mathematical model that determined how much cellulose fibre would be needed to create enough bubbles for a head that could compete with a draught poured at a local pub. Precisely, 8.3 x 10-4 square meters of fibre are required, or, a credit-card sized piece of paper added to a can of Guinness, or a layer of paper-like fibres coated on the inside of a can. No widget needed. But the draught will have to be poured slowly as the bubbles are not produced in a quick jolt, as they are with the widget.

The One “Ring”

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

A recent ChainLink Research piece on “ERP Part One – The Tales of Technology”, while addressing fusing, the myth of integration, noted that the lack of cohesion in architecture and applications led to the beginning of a silent admission by ERP, that there ultimately would never be the ‘one corporate software system’, but they would be a provider of a suite of products. I can’t say I agree.

We are moving toward the one “system”, coming full circle from the introduction of the first MRP systems back in the 50’s, but the “system” will not be so much a single application from a single vendor by a “ring” of seamlessly integrated applications by one or more vendors that address all supply chain functions supported by one central “cloud” with built-in middleware that enables multiple providers to seamless integrate their applications with applications from their peers.

And the way things are going, Salesforce could be “the one system” for many businesses. With so many SRM providers building apps for the SalesForce AppExchange that seamlessly integrate with the core platform and CRM data, it’s a logical next step. Coupa, CVM Solutions, and SupplierSoft have apps on the platform and a dozen more companies are developing apps as we speak.

Cloud services like the AppExchange may soon build the “One Ring” that binds all the systems into one cloud system. What do you think?