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Our members are recruitingBILLET OF THE WEEK
By Jean-Marc SOULIER, author of the book "La Révolution Supply Chain" (Maxima-Dunod)
Attack, defence and transition
At a time when football competitions are coming to an end (end of championships, national and European cup finals, etc.), it is always interesting to consider the analogies between the performance of sport and that of companies, in this case their Supply Chain.
In football, the game is often divided into three situations, each of which requires specific preparation and actions: attack, defence and transition phases (moving from defence to attack or the other way round). And these situations could quite easily be applied to the supply chain.
Over the last fifteen years, excluding the Covid period and the war in Ukraine, continued growth has meant that companies have worked a lot on their agility. That is to say, mainly on their ability to react quickly to increasing demand. This capacity, which is essentially offensive, can be mastered by using the following three levers:
- Accelerate response times (reduce delays, increase cycle frequencies)
- Build flexibility reserves (operational capacity reserves, buffer stocks, ...)
- Be as demand-driven as possible
Agility (i.e. attack) remains the major quality of a successful and conquering Supply Chain, but today with the instability generated by numerous risks (climatic, sanitary, geopolitical, ...), companies must significantly reinforce their defensive capacities. In other words, the resilience of their Supply Chain.
This is done through different types of actions:
- the widespread use of collaborative processes such as S&OP
- the development of digital twins for modelling and simulation
- an update of operational strategies: supply and sourcing, stock positioning, industrial network and logistics.
The transition phases have become strategic for certain teams (Jürgen Klopp with Dortmund and then Liverpool) who focus their efforts in the match on two key moments:
- An effective counter-attack that requires the coordination of all players, attackers and defenders, in an ultra vertical, fast and precise movement. This is similar to a supply chain where everyone knows and executes their role perfectly and where the processes and systems allow for very rapid action (speed of execution and decision-making) and great precision (control tower, traceability of flows and stocks).
- Aggressive counter-pressing when the ball is lost ("we must get the ball back in less than 6 seconds"). In the Supply Chain too, in the event of an operational problem (in the customer service department, in the warehouse, in production, etc.), it is necessary to know how to mobilise collectively on the subject, find the solution and resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
Previously a phase of comfort (watching a player calmly bring the ball up is surreal when you watch a match from the 90s), the transition has become a real combat phase. There are almost no more time-outs in high-level matches and there are undoubtedly fewer and fewer in the business world.
Attack, defence or transition phase, who better than Supply Chain professionals to adapt and master all these situations, and thus improve overall performance?
HIGHLIGHTS
French logisticians perform well internationally
If the lifestyle of the French were that of the whole of humanity, then on 5 May the world would have used as much natural resources as the Earth can produce in a year. In the same scenario, it would take 2.9 hectares of land to meet the needs of the population. These figures, revealed by the Global Footprint Network, are cause for concern, especially as the consequences are already being felt in the form of increasing scarcity of energy, raw materials and certain foodstuffs. This situation has been greatly amplified by the situation in Ukraine and financial speculation. The result is an impressive surge in prices for construction, industry, food and consumer goods. In the United States, the McDonald's hamburger, which (it seems) is the benchmark in terms of price index, is up 7% on sale! Beyond the direct impact of the shortage on inflation and, in the long term, on interest rates, it is becoming urgent to ask ourselves about the preservation of natural resources: should we continue to live like this until the planet is exhausted or should we imagine other circuits that would allow us to preserve and regenerate our resources? The answer is naturally in the question. And the circular economy must be one of the elements contributing to the solution. However, it is necessary to move from the concept to the implementation, from the collection of raw materials to their recovery at the end of their life and their recycling (when it comes to manufactured products). This is a major challenge, which involves all the components of the supply chain: organisation, planning, steering, optimised management of physical flows and information processing.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Members' meeting
France Supply Chain organises the Supply Chain Day during which its general assembly will be held. This year, SprintProject will be present to animate startup sessions on the industrialisation of new urban delivery vehicles, the DEA regulation and the AGEC law.
Events
Find all the events around the Supply Chain.
