Practical perspectives on supply chains, smarter operations, and building a business that’s ready for what’s next.
Materials with a shelf life break the ordinary logic of inventory management. Normal stock has a carrying cost. Perishable stock…
Read article : Shelf Life and Batch Expiry: Managing Perishable Raw Materials
Reorder points have a particular way of going wrong. Someone calculates them carefully at implementation, they’re correct for perhaps six…
Read article : How AI Sets Reorder Points That Adapt to Real Demand
Ask what it costs to hold inventory and the usual answer references warehousing and the interest on the money tied…
Read article : The True Cost of Carrying Inventory (It’s More Than You Think)
The annual stocktake is one of those practices that survives more on tradition than merit. It shuts the plant, consumes…
Read article : Cycle Counting vs. Annual Stocktake: Making the Switch
The argument tends to be conducted in principle, which is why it never resolves. Procurement points to volume leverage and…
Read article : Single vs. Dual Sourcing: A Risk-Based Decision Framework
Traceability tends to get built for auditors and then discovered to be operationally valuable the first time something goes wrong.…
Read article : Raw Material Traceability: From Supplier Batch to Finished Good
Ask what the lead time is on a component and you’ll get a single number. That number is in your…
Read article : Managing Raw Material Lead Time Variability
Variant proliferation happens gradually. One customer wants a different voltage. Another wants their branding. A third needs a different connector.…
Read article : Product Variants and Configurable BOMs: A Practical Guide
Engineering changes are necessary and unavoidable. Products improve, components go obsolete, suppliers change, defects get fixed. The question isn’t whether…
Read article : Managing BOM Change Requests Without Derailing Production
Most manufacturers can tell you what a product costs. Fewer can tell you when that figure was last calculated, and…
Read article : BOM Costing: How to Know Your True Product Cost in Real Time