February 20, 2009, Mississauga, Ontario – The Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council (the CSCSC) has responded to the needs of stakeholders with an update of labour-market information (LMI) achieved through a process developed to ensure that an accurate picture of the sector’s human resources is consistently captured in the future.
In a sector study completed in 2005, stakeholders identified the need to collect and monitor LMI as a high-priority action item. As a first follow-up step, the CSCSC completed a phase I LMI project in 2007 to gather input from the sector about the types of LMI that were most required. Two further LMI-related projects resulted: a phase II project, through which LMI tools are being developed for use by stakeholders, and the LMI-update and NOC-awareness project through which labour market data has been updated to reflect the current state of the sector.
The 2005 study used data from the 2001 Canadian Census and a ratio, developed by Industry Canada, applied to an aggregate of the total labour market for the 26 NOC (National Occupational Classification) codes considered to comprise the sector. Through its LMI-update project, led by RDA Global, the CSCSC has defined the ratio used in the sector study and applied it to recent Labour Force Survey data to establish current statistics for the sector. Based on recent data, the sector now employs 732,000 Canadians, up from the 701,880 people estimated to work in the supply chain in 2004.
The new LMI-update process will enable an understanding of trends, overall and by occupation, on a national, regional or local level, and provide an accurate baseline in terms of labour supply that firms and educators can use for forecasting purposes. On a larger scale, the data can also be used in addressing issues related to inter-provincial mobility and labour-market transitions, for example. NOC-Awareness Workshops
A second component of this project is aimed at boosting the use of NOC codes by the sector’s employers in their HR-management activities. Three information sessions will be held across Canada.

www.supplychaincanada.org

By: Eric Somers, CPIM, CIRM, CSCP, and Pam Somers, CPIM, CIRM, CSCP

Sales and Operations Planning is one of the most dynamic and high-impact planning processes available to companies. Ironically, in today’s competitive and challenging business environment, it is also one of the best kept secrets.
Effective Sales and Operations Planning has proven to be a successful solution for many major corporations, and the communication and discipline inherent in the process have led to more accurate projections, more effective use of resources, lower costs, and higher customer service levels.
The translation of the high-level business plan into plans to meet financial objectives and drive detailed operations has traditionally been a fragmented process. Sales and marketing, the keepers of the “Demand” plan, were concerned with financially-based sales targets, which often were in conflict with the capacities and capabilities of operations, or the “Supply” side of the organization. S&OP, through cycles of meetings and decision making processes, orchestrates communication and sharing of information that results in integrated plans to meet the objectives of the entire business.
This presentation will address some of the basic tenets of Sales and Operations Planning, including:
• S&OP defined: what it is and how it works
• Detailed steps of the S&OP cycle, and participation of different functional
groups
• S&OP’s role within the planning hierarchy, and how it is necessary for
effective Master Scheduling
• Benefits of S&OP compared to traditional planning methods.

Company leaders cut inventories prior to 2009 in a move that could lead some businesses to collapse, reports a recent Financial Times article. The destocking also is taking hold as raw material prices plummet and businesspeople wait longer to buy products that are getting cheaper.Feike Sijbesma, chief executive of Dutch life sciences group DSM, says destocking is causing pain throughout the supply chain. “Some smaller companies might fail,” he says.

Charles Tilley, head of the Chartered Institute for Management Accountants in the United Kingdom, says managing stock levels is a priority for company leaders in the downturn. “Obviously you want to have as little stock as possible,” Tilley says. Accounting rules force professionals to write down losses on inventory if a product was bought for more than it can be sold.

Some European industry insiders suggest it could be necessary to spend billions of Euros on write-downs. Andrew Vials, technical accounting partner at KPMG, says, “It is an area of focus. In any situation where you bought your inventory some time ago and the price is going down, you may have to write it down.”

Company leaders also are reluctant to restock some items as raw material prices continue to decline. “Everyone is destocking because they are all saying, ‘let’s wait and buy raw materials later because they can only get cheaper,’” Sijbesma says.

After Getting the Basic Processes Right, Companies are Expanding the Breadth and Depth of S&OP

From the SCDigest Editorial Staff
 
S&OP is one of those interesting supply chain areas in which many companies are just starting with the basics, using principles developed many years ago, while S&OP leaders are starting to push traditional S&OP processes to new levels.

The SCDigest Letter is seeing a number of S&OP trends among S&OP leaders, including the following:

• Process Ownership: While often initiated within the company by an executive within the supply chain organization who acutely perceives the pain and opportunity, an increasing number of companies are turning ownership of the process over to an executive in sales, marketing, or business unit management.

Read More…

Workers Who Feel Trusted Will Boost Sales and Provide Better Customer Service: UBC Study

Companies that communicate their trust to employees will see superior sales and customer service performance, says a psychology researcher from Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

In findings that will appear in the May 9, 2008 issue of The Journal of Applied Psychology, UBC Prof. Sandra Robinson and Sabrina Deutsch-Salamon of York University explored how workers’ perceptions of being trusted affected their work performance.

“Much has been written about how management needs to win the trust of its employees,” says Robinson, “but this study is quite different in that it suggests that management showing trust in their employees — regardless whether employees trust them — may make the biggest difference.”

Robinson’s study shows that the feeling of being trusted encourages employees to accept more responsibility at their jobs and to work harder in pleasing customers.

The researchers carried out a study at 88 stores of a major retailing company, collecting data from two sources: the retail chain’s archival records measuring sales and customer service performance for each store location, as well as employee annual surveys.

The surveys — conducted anonymously — asked employees about how trusted they felt by their managers.

“Our findings lend support to the contention that when employees feel trusted by the organization, they are more likely to cooperate with it,” says Robinson, who teaches organizational behaviour and human resources management at the Sauder School of Business.

The researchers’ next study will look at the specific things managers can do to change employees’ perceptions of whether they are trusted or not. Robinson speculates that it may include doing things like seeking input on decisions from employees, or in some cases, not doing things such as closely monitoring employee behaviour and their hours worked.

Prof. Sandra Robinson
Sauder School of Business
Tel: 604.822.2414
Cell: 604.999.5475
E-mail: sandra.robinson@sauder.ubc.ca

One of the more exciting recent developments in Distribution thinking is the concept of “Multi-Modal” order picking - the use of several technologies (traditional RF/bar code, voice, RFID, etc.) in a single picking area/application.

A new Kroll report sheds light on the complex and overlooked risks in today’s international and heavily outsourced supply chains. And while software can help spot supply chain fraud, IT systems are also making enterprises more vulnerable.

The world may be flat, as Thomas Friedman posits in his book, but this complex and interconnected planet of commerce can be one scary and risky place to conduct business. Enterprises have discovered that their businesses are ripe for fraud and theft as they rely more and more on global outsourcing relationships, complex networks of suppliers and vast computer networks to conduct business.

A recent report from Kroll , a risk consulting company that provides investigative, security and technology services, outlines the risks companies face with their global supply chains and the amount of fraud, product tampering and theft taking place today. And while IT can help detect and prevent fraud and supply chain nightmares, the report suggests that it can also be a huge threat to a company’s operations, reputation and future business prospects.

“At every step along the supply chain,” notes the Kroll report, “businesses are vulnerable to an array of frauds ranging from simple theft, through disguising the poor quality of materials, to the misrepresentation of inventory assets.”

Read More…

Q&A with: James Heskett

It’s the E=MC2 of customer loyalty.

Deeply satisfied employee = deeply satisfied customer = lifelong profit.

Harvard Business School professor emeritus Jim Heskett and professor Earl Sasser have pursued this seemingly simple equation in books including Service Breakthroughs (with Christopher Hart) and The Service Profit Chain and The Value Profit Chain (with Lenoard A. Schlesinger). Some of the ideas go back to Heskett’s 1986 book, Managing in the Service Economy. A new book, The Ownership Quotient, is underway, written with Sasser and Wheeler.

These works have come to deeply influence how managers think of customers, and introduce the idea that not all customers contribute equal value. Concrete examples illustrate the self-reinforcing nature of the connections between employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

We asked Heskett to update us on the new research and on the impact of these works on practice.

Read More…

http://www.scmr.com/blog/480000448/post/1230024323.html

http://www.supplychainstandard.com