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How do we develop Supply Chain muscles?
Supply Chains need muscles to handle disruptions, which keep challenging us from time to time. How do we develop these muscles?
We develop muscles in our body by working them beyond ‘business as usual’, through weight training, stretching or other exercises. Typical supply chains get these opportunities through periodic disruptions.
What if the supply chain has developed excellent agility to cope up with these disruptions without causing stress? How do we develop muscles in such a supply chain?
The answer is simple, we must create such situations by design. Shocking, isn’t it? This has been the secret of world class agile supply chains. They create internal disruptions periodically by tightening their specs.
Let me take an example. If the customer has agreed to a lead time of 24 hours, can we supply consistently in 20 hours? We can test it by starting action after 4 hours of receiving the order. We have induced stress, which is manageable. Once we develop this capability and execute it consistently, we can convert it into a competitive advantage by promising faster delivery to the customer.
There could be umpteen number of ways in which we can keep developing supply chain muscles in a. creative way.