A few weeks ago, I attended CSCMP’s Annual Global Conference in San Diego. Compared to 2009, the overall attendance was higher; there were approximately 3,500 attendees and well over 100 vendors that participated in the Supply Chain of the Future Lab.
When it came to the educational sessions, I attended a number of tracks with a specific interest in Sales & Operation Planning (S&OP). To my surprise there was an entire track dedicated to S&OP with standing room only participation. What I found amazing is that although S&OP is a 30+ year old concept, many companies, regardless of industry, are not executing on such a common sense practice. The genesis of S&OP is to synchronize and balance supply with demand through a formalized process that evaluates aggregate demand and demand influencers with supply and the variability that affects supply. A simple example is how lowering the price of an item sold on the internet or in a retail store creates more demand and that there must be enough supply in turn to cover the influential demand. It sounds simple, yet many companies’ sales organizations do not effectively communicate with their operational teams. Matter of fact, a common question asked during the CSCMP presentations was who should own the S&OP process. Surprisingly, many of the participants and speakers stated that the Supply Chain (operational) organizations were driving the process versus Finance or Sales. Quite frankly, I believe Senior Executives should own this process. How can you effectively run any company without an integrated financial business plan that reconciles top-down revenue by sales channel and category with bottom up item planning? Yet many companies do not have a formalized and predictive process that plans and measures what was committed to by a sales organization and how supply will be sourced to cover the demand...

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myShipINFO™ Mobile Provides
On-Demand, Mobile Access to
Current Transportation Metrics &
Spend for Improved Intelligence
and Decision-Making

enVista is providing transportation professionals mobile access to their current transportation metrics and spending through the release of myShipINFO™ Mobile.  myShipINFO™ Mobile, an extension of enVista’s robust, web-based myShipINFO™ Business Intelligence tool, provides users instant, web-based visibility to current transportation spend data from nearly any handheld mobile device, resulting in powerful, real-time visibility and decision-making capabilities from anywhere in the world.

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Customizable supply chain education and training sessions for supply chain professionals and executives

enRichment provides foundational knowledge across a variety of important supply chain topics and experience levels. Seminars are taught by enVista supply chain experts in an interactive learning environment.

enVista’s supply chain enRichment series offers several benefits to companies interested in developing key supply chain intelligence and processes within its organization. Trainings are uniquely customized based on clients’ operations and business goals, area of interest and audience experience levels...

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Supervising on the Line, authored by Labor Management Pioneer Gene Gagnon and updated by enVista CEO Jim Barnes, has recently been republished.  Through stories and real-life examples, the book offers common sense tips for managing employees in the distribution environment and provides first line supervisors the tools that they need to be successful. The front line supervisor is the one directly responsible for managing a very important asset – the company’s labor force which has a big impact on a company’s bottom line in many cases. Supervising on the Line will be available by mid-December for $12.95. Please click here to pre-order this book.

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SCDigest Editor Dan Gilmore and guest commentator Jim Barnes review key sessions from the 2010 Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) annual confernence in San Diego.

Procter & Gamble gets more demand driven, Mars improves S&OP, dissecting supply chain tranformation, 3PL strategy, and more...

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Al Gagnon traces the history of labor management applications in the warehouse, and talks about why and where the technology is catching on with companies today.

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In today’s world of Supply Chain Execution, every penny saved definitely counts. Some of those pennies being saved are due to the implementation of a Labor Management System (LMS). The combination of a LMS with a comprehensive workforce productivity management program can save companies significant money over time. Over the past few years, several articles have been published regarding the three primary components of a LMS. They are:

• Lean Process Improvement and Preferred Methods
• Engineered Labor Standards (ELS)
• Real-Time Labor Reporting

Many of the early adopters in LMS implementations originated in the Grocery and Food Service industries, which were characterized as low margin businesses. Thus the need to save pennies, or better yet, fractions of pennies, was always near the top of the improvement list for those supply chain...

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enVista’s client, Gump’s, is a San Francisco-based retailer featuring luxury gifts, jewelry, artful objects and home décor. The company was started 150 years ago in 1861 as a mirror and frame shop, and has turned into a leader in direct-to-you shopping as well as offering an award winning catalog and website.

In San Francisco, the company has both on and off-site storage as well as a retail store. Gump’s has two additional distribution centers located in Missouri and Indiana. The Mississippi distribution center houses their catalog and web fulfillment, shipping primarily small parcel and the Indiana DC handles 3rd party (Home Direct) fulfillment for oversized item. The company’s inventory is managed through Ecometry.

Gump’s core need was to improve international communication between their vendors, carriers, forwarders and consolidators, and gain greater visibility to carrier service performance. Ensuring accurate lead time for truck delivery was also a key concern for the retailer, as well as improved packaging and vendor compliance to packaging guidelines.

Gump’s engaged enVista to conduct a parcel audit on a weekly basis, as well as perform a thorough analysis of their parcel invoice data and carrier pricing agreements. In addition, Gump’s was interested in establishing a negotiating strategy, developing the carrier RFP
documentation, and overseeing the carrier responses through several rounds of negotiation with both national parcel carriers.

enVista’s expert team conducted a process-oriented examination of Gump’s current transportation spend and evaluation of their current carrier contracts. By analyzing the data, enVista was able to construct a detailed cost analysis and savings model relative to peer group benchmarks. Utilizing the output of this analysis enabled enVista to use a fair and equitable approach with the participating carriers and ensure the optimal pricing and service...

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