While at the Summit I spoke to several companies to find out if they had the capacity to respond to natural disasters and what they have already done to respond when emergeny strikes. The responses were interesting and varied. The range of response is as follows; 1. Some companies have a disaster response team because their activity is so global that natural disasters affect them, their supply chain and their customers in multiple locations. If they have a disaster response team they also have d …
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- Timely, relevant insight on manufacturing issues, written by industry leaders, for industry leaders
- Unique content on such key topics as sustainability and tomorrow’s workforce
- Six bi-monthly, advertising-free issues rich in information and ideas, all in a clear, easy-to-read format
- Available in a format you prefer: Print, Digital and iPad app
The Global Community for Manufacturing Leadership
Ideas
Ideas
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The answer is simply that the question is wrong! A smart company would have anticipated this condition and split their risk among at least three suppliers allowing volumes allocated to any one supplier to be moved to the surviving suppliers. It is absolutely possible to model the financial implications...that's why multiple vendors (which does add some incremental costs associated with extra management and system interfaces) is a business decision to begin with. See answer one above.
20
Question 1 - First factor is what type of supllier is this? If they are a tier 1 or 2 supplier they are part of our supplier network collaboration process and as such our most probable response would be to definitely help them rebound by contacting them to see what we could do to ensure their continued viability and return to normalcy. As part of this effort we would seek to understand just how severely the earthquke has impacted their capability to perform and how much that would impact our o …
35
Factors to consider: Replace or help? It depends ... The decision criteria centers on the strength (or lack thereof) of the relationship. Replacing commodity products and services are easier to transfer than a deep rooted engineered product or service. What is the cost of the human relationships? Relationships are difficult to quantify. To determine this "supplier" risk score, management should score using a weighted approach. First rate each of the 8 items below (add more to list as nee …
15
Have open and honest conversations with your customers concerning the state of your business. The strongest relationships are built when responding to challenges so use this as an opportunity to build a better relationship. Update your forecasts and plans with your customers to make sure you are sending product to customers that really don't need it or that can modify their production or use to accommodate youPrioritize your remaining production to fill your highest priority needs.And just in c …
5
Go ahead and take the interruption in stride while the opportunity exists to make improvements. Accelerate some projects that were going to require some downtime or just perform the work that needed the downtime. Perform maintenance that required the downtime.
15
After you are back to full production, get the team together and identify your business risks to prevent this in the future. What can be done to prevent this and other challanges in the future. always keep business with two suppliers in geographically different areas of the world.even if you are vertically integrated, keep an external supplierexplore alternative solutionsbusiness interruption insurancetaking downtime to perform maintenanceaccelerate projects to take advantage of slow timeetc. …
5
The supplier in question's situation needs to be quickly identified as to how serious the damage is and the liklihood of a quick resolution can come. If the employees and materials can be shuttled into the plant and equipment cn quickly be repaired then assisting for a temporary work environment can be conisdered. If it is determined that a long delay is going to inhibit the work flow then alternative solutions need to be discussed and decided upon quickly. The factors will be the cost and timi …
0
Identify the key stakeholders and decision makers and get them into a room, face to face. These decisions should be made remotely. A lot of information and analysis needs to be done in order to make sound decisions on which option to take. Some simple financial modeling can easily be done around switching suppliers, ramp up time, etc.
5
What are the other customers doing that used this supplier. Utilizing the TEAM (Together, Everyone Achieves More) approach, what can be done to help this supplier get back into production? Your business allowed yourself to connected this tightly to the supplier that it is significantly going to impact your operation. Now is not the time to try to work out legal solutions. Take good notes and get things back to normal as quickly as possible. Figure out the long terms solutions afterwards. …
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If this is a strategic supplier such that you are even having these sorts of thoughts, then you need to get someone on-site to be your eyes and ears to coordinate your response. The suppliers command and control is going to be focused on reestablishing operations and communication with customers may not be a high priority. Not to mention the shear amount of information that will be pouring in from everywhere, you need to make sure the information you are receiving is accurate. Your decisions …
10
Overview The stated requirements of a global manufacturing leader are not a contradiction. It is a misunderstanding. Agility and flexibility are definitely required. As customer needs flux and supplier realities in any geography differ it is essential that a responsive manufacturing organization exist. Cost reduction is a perpetual goal. Complexity is a given. None of these issues are in contradiction to the agility and flexibility. The misunderstanding simply arises in the inference that …
20
Manufacturing works with a precision the rest of the business would envy. Distribuiton makes mistakes at a rate that would explode warranty work if it occurred in the product - through no fault of their own. Sales/Demand - forget about any predictable element. Therefore, the Factory of the Future needs to encompass a relationship with Distribution and Demand that allow for a balanced performance that mitigates risk, time, cost and disruption to on-going business. The Factory of the Future do …
10
How can the manufacturing sector engage more extensively with new social media platforms like YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter to get its message of professionalism, innovation and opportunity across to the next generation?
10
It struck me as I was reporting on the Stuxnet cyber-attack, which sought to infect manufacturers' control systems, that we live in a disconnected age, in which some large slice of the population underappreciates the gears and levers and physical things that help move our world. We're so focused on app stores and cloud computing, and so keen to outsource things like car repair, that our hands have lost the feel of the nuts and bolts on which we depend. I wrote about this disconnect at M …
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