BLOG
The Latest News and Thoughts from the RSI Team
Are you a small company who struggles with overwhelming contractual demands of big businesses? You’re not alone!
With the size and complexity of organizations today, companies are constantly relying on each other to complete their respective projects. Whether you're a small business or a large business, they both need each other equally in order to get the work done. When working with big businesses (aka "the client"), we often find that many times they make unreasonable demands of us when it comes to our contracts and agreements.
Lessons The Pandemic Taught The Supply Chain
As a planner, you know you need to learn from the past. This is so you can improve future planning and supply chains. One of the most useful things to learn from is customer demand data from previous COVID-19 waves. Does your inventory planning system allow you to use this demand data to run what-if scenarios? If not, you may want to consider another system.
The COVID-19 demand data collected from the initial waves of the virus gives us an opportunity to learn about key drivers of demand for specific product categories in specific location. We can learn where forecasts went wrong and use this information to improve future planning for the next waves of COVID-19 (e.g. Delta Variant). Any learnings can be used in future waves of COVID-19.
The Importance of Replenishment Lead Time Variation in Inventory Planning
Inventory planning is a vital process for companies that want to minimize risk and maximize profit. It can be difficult, however, to create an accurate inventory plan when there are so many variables in the equation. The complexity of inventory planning increases exponentially when replenishment lead time variation is not taken into account. In this blog post, we'll explore why replenishment lead time variation should be included in all inventory plans.
What does Elon Musk think about Supply Chain?
“The supply chain stuff is really tricky.” ~Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX
A concept that might be tricky, is something called the bullwhip effect.
Bullwhips are tools that are used to make animals move. They are used to create a small sonic boom and can be dangerous to the animal or anything in the way. A bullwhip has a large handle, with a tapered lash, that varies in length. Then at the very end of the whip is a popper. The handle is moved, and the physical waves move progressively faster when the whip is flicked until they end at the popper, which provides a loud popping sound, moves incredibly fast, and is quite dangerous.
Risk Mitigation with a Dual-Source Supply Base Data Modeling
Many new trends in sourcing include the new term Sure-Shoring. This means a supply chain may have multiple sources close to home and across the world. With all supply chains, there is potential for geo-political instability, natural disasters, or even a giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal to affect the day to day.
Can Right Sized Inventory Optimize Kanban Systems?
Kanban directly translates to signboard. It was popularized by Toyota and more directly translates as a signal. At RSI we interpret that as a signal to order! This means there is a trigger to replenish in a certain amount at a given lead time.
Are You Overburdening Workers and Introducing Risk?
Five months into the COVID-19 pandemic I’d had countless conversations with supply chain executives across the globe discussing how they were pivoting operations to deal with the impact. It was clear that due to unavoidable resource reductions, most or all supply chain professionals were being overloaded with additional responsibilities.
Schedule a Call
Find out if Right Sized Inventory is right for your business and inventory needs. Set up a call with one of our team and we’ll walk you through a demo, identify trouble spots in your business, and see how implementing RSI can transform your business through data-driven inventory optimization.