Sunday Night Outlook - State of Grace

Just saw the Tree of Life. A strange but interesting movie.

Grace is a state of mind.

It is about letting go and enjoying letting go. When all worries are behind us, we live in a state of grace.

Live in a state of grace is the ultimate form of happiness. We can learn it by practicing love, service and gratitude.

Love is about having this thought for the beloved. At any moment. There is no reason not to love, because love is choice, a decision without conditions. Love is about loving. Without forgetting to love yourself first. When you love yourself, you don't need to receive love. You give love.

Service is to give all your talents without holding back. Expressing your potential. And enjoying doing so. Cause the results of service is a smile.

Gratitude is celebration of life. We in our fast paced society tend to be too busy to enjoy expressing our blessings for the wonderful moments of life.

Let's slowdown once in a while, just before sleeping to remind ourself we live in a dream larger than life!

Sunday Night Outlook - My ToBeHappy List

Lastly I was trying to understand what makes people happy. Did not turn 40 for nothing... :))))

What makes me happy? Is it money? A fulfilling mission? Vacation? Great relationships?

Not really. In fact all these are part of one simple equation.

My happiness = Freedom to do what I like x the pace I most enjoy doing these things

I want a bit of everything we like in the right proportions. And what I like, desire and when is as different as we are different people.

So as of today I replaced my todo list with a tobehappy list.

Nothing is more fun than creating a daily or weekly tobehappy list. Starting from the basics and moving into more personalized pleasures. . Fresh air. Clean water. Some money. A great fruit salad. A smoothie. A steak. A walk outside. A chat. Playtime with the dog. A sailing race.Encounters with dear people. Time for a good conversation. Or a cup of coffee. A massage. Or best of all, a surprise for a friend, child or a total stranger.

And the most exciting is actually to keep free timeslots for improvisation.

My tobehappiness list almost empty this week!

Sunday night outlook

Changing country can be a daunting experience. And in Europe England is the most exotic place to go to. But I am simply loving it!

They speak this strange language called English. They eat roastbeef, or fish and chips with mushy peas, a green version of mashed potatoes, have bacon and beans in red tomato sauce and hashbrowns for breakfast. They go to pubs to drink beer with almost no alcohol and believe they will get drunk with water. And most strange they adore their royal family as if these were movie stars... Charles, Diana, Andrew,... gear up your acting talent! Please...

Cars drive on the wrong side of the road over there and it rains every day.

Let's move to England fast. Can't wait. Like a fish I need to acclimatize!

Sunday night outlook

Writing an article is like a therapy. Suddenly all the dreams and experiences accumulate into an idea. And what do you do with this data overload? Will you let this idea live on paper and share its power with others?

Kill the idea or kill some trees? That is the question.

Personally I then grab my iPad and start pushing on the screen with various fingers pretending there is a keyboard there. :)

Then from blog, I copy on both social media I use, Facebook and Linkedin, pretending someone will find it interesting. Somewhere in the world, there must be someone waiting for this message or not? :)

My message to the universe this week is very simple. If you ever had a dream worth pursuing, start with a first little step. Write it down before the idea dies.

All books ever written started with a blank page and motivation.

Deep inside we men know that all we ever wrote, invented or did is because there was a woman that cared.

To me knowing that made all the difference. Thanks for keeping my ideas alive. I honor all your beautiful memories too.

Why success will come from your supply chain

Supply chains are a dramatic way to double, triple, even increase your profit margins tenfold.

Unfortunately many supply chain professionals look at the wrong side of the equation. When targeting cost reduction one must look at service, not at costs to improve the business situation. Below is an explanation of the reason why.

Ever heart about the battles and wars between Supply chains? Such big words might sound funny, but if I you are a business executive, please pay attention!

Businesses globalize and technology spreads. Nothing new. New suppliers from low-cost countries invade new markets as patents expire and cheaper versions can be offered to the customers. Whole markets became commodities and once loyal customers jump to cheaper options.

Many would have a spontaneous reaction to cut costs.

What if I would tell you a much better solution is to do exactly opposite? Instead of trying to analyze cost-base and try to match the competitors costs, my advise is companies should completely review their service offer. Supply chains are a balance of service and costs but the larger chunk of these costs are hidden in the term 'service'.

My message today for you is that' The fastest way to cut costs is by understanding the services you offer'!

By challenging the service offer, new opportunities to reduce costs but also to generate extra revenue quickly emerge. The battle for service in many companies still has many unwritten rules, and unless you talk with customers you are doomed to work on your cost-base only and miss these enormous opportunities. There is indeed a much better option than Poor Service @ Lowest Cost ... and that is Right Service @ Right Cost!

And the great news is that the more competitive your market is the more it pays off to review your service offer. The maths are very simple. Service reviews typically lead to 10 to 15% cost savings or extra revenue.

If you still enjoy a 40 percent profit margin, a service review will increase this margin to 49%. You only make 20% margin? No problem, I make it 39%. If you say 10% margin, I double it to 19%. A 5% margin triples to 14.5%. If you would only have a 1% margin, even better. You would get a tenfold increase of your margin: 10.9% after the review of your service offer.

The business case for a herbicide my previous employer sells in large volumes in Brazil is exemplary. We could have implemented a traditional cost saving programme and we would have succeeded to cut costs with 1 or 2%. Nothing spectacular.

Instead we started a cross-functional customer-driven initiative. And in 3 years time we made 15% cost savings a reality, or 5 to 7 million each year depending on the sold volumes! Because Supply Chain engaged with the Business we started to understand what customers value and what they don't, and as a result, we saw ways to save 24 USD cents per litre in different areas like packaging, duties, logistics and pricing. When you know each cent cost reduction we implemented gave the business 300,000 USD saving per year, then you can easily trace back how a review of the service offer led to millions USD savings per year.

Are we really able to separate the needs and wants for each customer and product?

That is what Customer-driven approaches are about. Unless your business understands how to eliminate lots of hidden service costs (Over-availability, Over-quality, Over-flexibility, Over-reliability and Over-delivery), your company will be doomed to scratch the surface of potentially huge cost savings. And why would we not explore all extra fee opportunities of generating new sources of revenue thanks to your supply chains!!!

Hope I made a point why success will come from your supply chain!

What logisticians could learn from Julius Caesar

What would the Roman army be like without their logistics mastership?

Would they have built the empire we know stretching as far north as Britania, following the Rhine north across Switzerland and Germany till the wall of Hadrianus, stretching South over Egypt, Lybia and North-Africa, including the Middle East and the region around Greece and stretching West to Iberic peninsula and all of France?

Asking the question is giving the answer. The Romans were masters in moving soldiers and inventory at the right time to the right place and there is a lot we can learn from them.

What were their key logistics principles?

1. Structured but decentralized organization

The army was subdivided in units with clear scope and leadership. They operated independently but had a clear reporting lines. Because each square of soldiers fitted into a bigger square to form a compact unit acting with one voice. That of the commander.

2. Standardization

Each soldier was equipped in a standard way making all equipment and skills interchangeable leading to flexibility and independence. Each soldier was also carrying part of the infrastructure to help continuous improvement of the roads and camps they were building during their invasions.

3. Predesigned layouts for their camps but with variable size at predetermined distance

As the army conquered new territory new outposts were created at exactly the right walking distance supporting a progressing army. These outposts were enhanced based on importance and maturity model. But they all had a standard layout but adapted size making it easy for newcommers to find their way and efficiently defend the place.

4. Well-maintained infrastructure

Roads were of highest quality and bridges or other constructs were built to last.

5. Predesigned expediting services and fast communication

Horses and stables with fresh well-rested animals at regular intervals allowed fast crossing of distances. Pigeon mail ensured regular and effective long-distance communication.

Lots we can learn of how Romans moved their soldiers, food supplies, weapons and repair material in time and at the right place.

Lots we can learn from them!

Building blocks of a Customer-driven Supply chain

Just think about the explosion in choice customers are being offered today.

Amazon.com, Alibaba.com, Walmart, Ikea, Procter&Gamble, Apple, Cisco,..., all face an ever increasing number of customizations to their products and services, customers buy. Just walk into any retailer outlet and you can choose amongst a wide variety of options.

How can such a responsiveness concept be achieved? We call it a Customer-driven Supply Chain. And article below shares with you key enablers of such powerful new supply chains.

In theory all that is needed is the widely publicized kanban-system promoted by Toyota and other Japanese companies for more than 50 years. Or the idea to focus on less is more under the motto 'Without orders we do not produce'. Which means 'each time the customer buys, we replenish, but if there is no sales, we do not keep ourselves busy producing excess inventory, hoping these will sell later', as traditional companies do!

In reality such a boringly predictable, low inventory and profitable efficient supply chain takes years to put in place. For a kanban to function correctly, reliable and cost-efficient supply is absolutely essential. Short leadtimes from order to delivery become an obsessive focus. Long and variable leadtimes must be shortened and stabilized all across the chain and all customers and products must fit into the design of the supply chain. Automation, mechanization, simplification. No investment is avoided to meet this objective.

To understand how customers fit into the design, think of Amazon as an exemple. Each customer can choose a service option and must then accept the resulting rules and waiting times. This service comes at a cost as each order line shows purchase and delivery price separately. A customer either chooses the lowest price (slow delivery) or pays a premium for superior delivery service. To make this workable, distribution must be fast and responsive.

Products must be produced to refill the inventories, whenever there is a need. Here flexibility and changing production from one model to the next fast guarantees the speed. as Henry Ford used to say when inventing the assembly line for his famous Black Ford T, speed leads to superior quality.

Speed in distribution, coupled with transparent delivery costs for the customer, and flexibility to change production based on order patterns and inventory changes is what determines how customer-driven your supply chain is.

Without this speed there is no way a company can reduce its reliance on sales forecasting. And that is the ultimate goal of a customer-driven Supply Chain: reduce forecast-driven activities which are based on wrong predictions of the future in favor of customer-driven actions. It makes your supply chain more efficient, less costly and higher value-add with dramatically less inventory!

This does not mean forecasting is not important in a customer-driven Supply chain. On the contrary! Whereas forecasts in a traditional supply chain are very detailed, fragmented and used at operational level, the customer-driven supply chain emphasizes the importance of information quality and sharing! In a Customer-driven supply chain all parties down the chain must know the forecast, aggregated or disaggregated to the level where it supports business decisions, instead of supporting execution of a transaction. Data standards must be shared across the chain, with clear and agreed conversion rules for bottom-up aggregation and top-down translation.

In a customer-driven supply chain, forecasts, supply plans and inventory information are available to all in simple dashboard format. but the data underneath the dashboards are transactional building blocks that can be aggregated, added, subtracted and multiplied without complex translations.

We have now completed the review of the 3 key building blocks that enable a Customer-driven SC to operate correctly:

1. flexible production

2. predictable distribution leadtimes allowing customers to choose a service option with transparent costs associated to them

3. shared, real-time quality information in dashboard format to support decisions based on very detailed, transactional, standardized data-building blocks all in the chain can access

Exciting work in coming years for all supply chain professionals. Redesigning the supply chains of the future. Customer-driven supply chains! As Toyota envisioned more than 50 years ago. The journey just started.