Alvis Lazarus

ISCEA is the developer of Internationally recognized certification programs of Certified Supply Chain Manager (CSCM), Certified Supply Chain Analyst (CSCA), Certified Lean Master (CLM), Certified Supply Chain Technology Professional (CSCTP), Certified Demand Driven Planner (CDDP) and others. ISCEA is the governing body for the Ptak Prize. ISCEA members hold mid to upper supply chain management positions in Global 2000 companies.

The International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA) was the first organization certifying supply chain professionals around the globe, and it remains the worldwide authoritative resource for supply chain career development with thousands of certificate holders commanding top-tier salaries.

ISCEA was established in 2003 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA to fill the need of high impact training for supply chain professionals.

ISCEA conducts supply chain educational workshops, exams, exhibitions, networking events, and award receptions Worldwide.

ISCEA instructors are University Professors and/or Industry experts with many years of experience.

As each day passes by, customer expectations keep increasing. Though it feels like what big deal, the amount of stress it put on the supply chain of the organization is huge. The organization’s supply chain is sandwiched between growing expectations of customers and the cost of operations. Though there are many ways to ease out this pressure on the supply chain, the one solution which works out well in most of the scenarios is – being close to the customer. That means the Finished goods are kept closer to the customer and similar way all the raw material required for the organization is kept closer to them as well. This significantly increased the requirement for Warehouses and distribution centers.

Though it looks like a pretty straightforward job; Warehouse, if not well designed and implemented, will result in a huge negative impact on the margins as well as result in very bad customer experience. Many organizations think that just by outsourcing this warehousing activity, all these kinds of issues can be sorted out. But the hard reality is whether it is an own warehouse or an outsourced to my house if it is not well designed to suit the operations, then it will do the above-stated negative impact on the organization and its performance.

Optimizing Warehouse is crucial not only during the time of new implementation but as a routine maintenance activity as well.

It is highly important that every organization understands that warehousing plays a very crucial role within a supply chain; They act as a cushion to iron out the variabilities within the supply chain and also a crucial touchpoint before the product reaches the customer.

In this current era, Warehousing is one of the crucial pillars within the supply chain strategy which would yield the organization, a competitive edge in the market they operate.

Go-To Market (GTM) strategy is a detailed step by step methodology and plan created to successfully launch a product from concept to shelf. Not just that, GTM strategy also includes the supply chain and logistics strategy which includes planning, sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution. GTM Strategy also includes product positioning in the market, cost strategy and pricing strategy.

Depending on the Industry, there are multiple components that are part of the Go-To Market strategy. But in generic, there are 6 key components in a GTM strategy namely –

Go-To Market Strategy Framework
Supply Chain Design – Network
Logistics Strategy
Pricing Strategy
Customer Experience – Order to Delivery
Supply Chain Standardization – Process + Systems

Any change related to customers like delivery timelines, cost, and quality is always tough and has a direct impact on customer experience. On contrary, the one thing which the organization has complete control over is operational efficiency. By the ability to deliver the same output, of the same quality, same customer experience with optimum resources gives the organization a healthy financial situation over the competition. Also, it is proven that lean organizations deliver much better to their customers as well.

Business process re-engineering (Often called BPR) is one of the most understated tasks within an organization. Still, there are questions like – ‘we have been doing this for years, Why the process has to be documented?‘. I don’t blame them; the very reason why organizations lose interest in process documentation, process engineering, and process improvement is that They don’t get the intended benefits out of these projects and in most cases, the prepared SOPs and documentation stay on shelves for years without any use. The root of the issue is nothing but driving BPR projects at a very surface level and without keeping the process owners in the loop.

The reality is, without standardized processes an active BPR process, organizations or leaving their customer experience, Operational efficiency, brand reputation, and growth at a very greater risk.

Warehouse plays a very crucial role within the supply chain of the organization. In most cases, a warehouse is the last touchpoint before the product reaches the customer and thereby an important touchpoint in the supply chain which impacts the customer experience and service fill.

Operation improvement of a warehouse is four-pronged:

Safety
Space
Flow
Handling

In most organizations, supply chain compliance is seen as a set of rules which has to be followed. But, Supply chain compliance is much more than that. A supply chain that is compliant can provide seamless Customer experience, Efficient operations, Safety of workforce as well as products, Healthy margins, and Growth.

Supply chain compliance includes a number of policies, acts, certifications and standards. Few of them are legally required and most of them are optional. Standards like weights and measures, employee health and safety, hazardous parts storage, and so on are mandatory. There are many other standards that are optional but they could potentially improve the overall work-life and culture of the organization if implemented well.

Network modelling is one of the key activity done part of the overall supply chain strategy to ensure that the demand and supply are well aligned. Network modelling is a crucial tool that can be used to design and set up a supply chain from scratch or it can be used to optimize an existing supply chain.

There are three phases within network modelling:

Demand and supply mapping
Network model building
Network optimization

Decades before, manufacturing provided the competitive edge for an organization. As years passed by, every organization mastered the art of efficiency, reliability, and consistency in manufacturing. That crucial role of providing an edge over the competition is filled by none other than the distribution.

Distribution strategy develops a plan by which an Organization design an opt channel to reach the customer and also ensures that the required products can reach their customers on time. Part of the distribution strategy is the optimization of the overall distribution cost and service fill.

Manufacturing logistics design includes all the planning, design, and implementation involved in receiving raw material, storage, handling, and preservation, till the product is presented at the point of use.

The most crucial phase within a warehouse management system implementation is building the business case for the requirement of the warehouse management system itself and the selection of the right WMS. The reason is, just that a WMS yielded a lot of benefits to your competitor organization, it is not assured the same WMS is going to be an advantage for your organization.