Recently I’ve helped supply teams that had lost the ability to plan and control their supply chain with realistic expectations, develop a plan and avert a crisis.
The supply teams’ companies had fallen victim to the bow wave and hockey stick phenomenon. For those of you who are not familiar with the terms, a Bow Wave is a mass of orders, both past due to promise date and in current production, that sits in the current period on the planning horizon. Together, the combination of these orders is well beyond the company’s capabilities to all be completed as promised and/or scheduled. A Hockey Stick is the uptick in shipments that occurs at the end of each period as a result of pulling future shipments into the current period for the sake of generating additional revenue. The phenomenon tends to be greater at the fiscal end of quarter and annual cycles, in a last-ditch effort to hit budget.
A Bow Wave alone demonstrates that the Supply Team has lost the ability to plan and control their supply chain with realistic expectations. A Hockey Stick phenomenon alone demonstrates an executive team is unable to manage the financial plan of the company within expectations. When both Bow Wave and Hockey Stick occur, the outcome can be disastrous for the company and for careers.
Fortunately, all of this can be avoided! Read my latest supply-planning white paper. Consider attending the webinar I am presenting on this topic.Certainly another way to avoid these crippling challenges is to make sure your planning team is educated and up to date in best practice planning methods.
Education is the best method to ensure success. Consider bringing your planning team to an Oliver Wight education Session. Oliver Wight provides client support through educational events that accentuate best practice knowledge transfer. We enable the application of best practices through public business improvement courses held at venues throughout the United States.
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- Start with an Integrated Business Planning Course for the executives and those that support the executive team.
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- Take the priceless Integrated Supply Chain Management Course for both commercial and supply chain teams.
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- Make sure the demand team members attend the Demand Management Course and the supply team members attend the course I teach – Master Scheduling.
You will need to ensure that there is some crossover in the courses, as this is a team approach. Supply planners must understand demand plan development to be supportive and the commercial teams should be clear on supply plan development.