DaveTurbide.com

Archive: Advice and Assistance for Manufacturers

Supply Chain Risk

July 2010
A volcano in Iceland erupts and shuts down air travel to and from parts of Europe. Chinese workers strike for higher wages. A supplier’s plant has a devastating fire. Increased security procedures cause delays in getting import shipments cleared through the port. Commodity prices soar – then tumble. Petroleum prices triple, increasing all transportation costs.

Lean IS Green

Dave will be speaking about sustainability and lean manufacturing at the 2010 APICS International Conference “Excellence in the New Normal: Best Practices for Global Supply Chain and Operations Management”

The Other ROI

June 2010
When you bought and implemented your system, you were looking for (and hopefully measuring) the Return on Investment – ROI. Now that you have had the system in place for some time, wouldn’t you like to Re-energize Operational Improvements?

No Longer a Need to Forecast?

May 2010
With the evolution of tighter supply chains, shorter product cycles and shorter lead times, along with dramatic reductions in inventory throughout the supply chain, one might be tempted to conclude that planning and forecasting are a lot less important today than they were in the pre-Internet world. Don’t you believe it!

Did He Eat the Steak?

April 2010
Do we practice what we preach? We can talk all we want about best practices and green resource management, and few will ever know if we have achieved success in that area. Nor should they. The improvement programs you undertake are aimed at better performance, lower costs, and becoming more competitive, and as long as the result justifies the effort and expense, it doesn’t matter what you call it or who knows about it.

Green Collaboration

March 2010
By sharing ideas across different industries, energy and resource saving practices can ‘cross-pollinate’ much in the same way best-in-class benchmarking can bring innovative breakthroughs from one industry to another.

2 Big Questions

February 2010
Sometimes, it’s helpful to step back and ask the ‘big question’: Why do we have xxx? Or why do we do yyy? It’s easy to get wrapped up in the details and lose sight of the overall objective. Let’s look at a couple of answers.

5 Actions: Guidelines for 2010

January 2010
Although the changing of the calendar is a relatively arbitrary event, it is nonetheless an opportunity many of us take to review the past year and make plans and resolutions for the coming twelve months. Follow these guidelines as we move into the new decade.

APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) Program

APICS CSCP
In this challenging global marketplace, only the most well-trained, well-educated professionals will be sought after by employers and valued by organizations.

Sustainability

December 2009
A big part of the “green” movement in manufacturing is the idea of sustainability meaning “using methods, systems and materials that won’t deplete resources or harm natural cycles.” This is a particular subset of the general idea of waste reduction that is focused on the use of renewable resources and the whole realm of reuse, recycle, and responsible disposal.

Getting Green

November 2009
The heart of the ‘green’ movement is reducing waste and doing what you can to save resources. Sound familiar? It should; that’s what resource management professionals have been focused on for many years. And that’s what ERP and related systems are focused on as well. So, if you are using ERP to reduce waste and make your operations more efficient, you’re already going green.

Automated Data Collection

Consulting – October 09
Bar coding has been the de facto standard for plant and warehouse data collection for more than 20 years but has recently seen some credible competition from other technologies such as RFID, touch screens, pick-to-light and voice systems. Whatever the medium, automated data collection makes sense in many industrial environments to not only save time and costs, but also to improve the quality and timeliness of the information collected.

Productivity is Up – Should You Keep it a Secret?

September 2009
Recent news reports indicate that productivity is up for U.S. manufacturers. Last week’s employment and economic numbers confirm that, although companies are increasing output, they are not hiring. Therefore, we can conclude that employees are working harder and producing more. It’s not great news for employees, but companies should be benefiting from lower cost of goods sold and potentially higher margins to help make up for lower sales. The question of the day is: Should you keep this increased productivity a secret?

What Is Your Competitive Edge?

August 2009
Of all the resources a manufacturing company has, the human resource is at least as important as any of the others – and perhaps the hardest to duplicate. Retaining that human talent and experience will be fundamental to building the business back up as demand increases.

Good Business and Bad Business

July 2009
Not all sales are alike and not all sales are good. It’s possible that your accounting process does not recognize the true costs of each type of product. Regardless of what software you use, there are decisions in how costs are collected and how accounting is set-up that can make a big difference in the accuracy of the information you use to make those critical decisions.

Planning for Business to Recover

June 2009
Just as it is crucial to identify a down-turn as early as possible and make the appropriate adjustments, it is equally important to identify the start of a recovery and make the appropriate changes in plans quickly and effectively. There are many indications that the current recession has reached bottom and business is beginning to pick up again. Now is the time to start — carefully and judiciously, to be sure – ramping back up to higher levels of procurement and production to insure that you will be able to meet increasing demand.

Slaying Sacred Cows

May 2009
There has been a lot in the news lately about General Motor’s decision to discontinue Pontiac and either sell or discontinue Saturn and Hummer. It wasn’t that long ago when GM included 6 separate divisions (Chevrolet, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac and Saturn) that all produced cars that significantly overlapped each others’ markets. While a certain amount of duplication might have market value and the brands had some market power from their near century-old tradition and brand loyalty, the fact is that this level of duplication did not make economic or business sense.

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)

April 2009
When markets are changing, it is especially important to forecast and plan effectively in order to optimize inventory, make the best use of available resources, and match production to demand. S&OP is the process of developing and maintaining a plan for how company resources will be applied to meet customer demand. It’s a balancing act matching supply and demand.

Turn the Slowdown into an Opportunity: 5 Ways To Move Ahead of the Competition

March 2009
When times are tough, smart businesses seize opportunities for improvement whenever and wherever they can. While cost cutting may be necessary in the near term, it’s important to look beyond today to the time when demand will begin to recover – as it most certainly will – and prepare to be even more competitive when that happens.