Coming soon! Common Sense Supply Management - Tales From
the Supply Chain Trenches
In his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli
offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many
organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales From the Supply Chain Trenches uses
real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply
chain management trenches. The stories
are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By
carefully following this book’s accounts, supply management professionals can
learn a career’s worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides
practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving
supply chain management reality.
Like many good business leaders, the author places business
relationships first and foremost in his guide. “Supply management covers more
breadth and depth than any other discipline in an organization,” says DePaoli.
“It is the art of building multiple relationships.”
His book advances to tackle best practices, Lean Six Sigma,
and information-based negotiations. He includes an extensive chapter on
planning and strategy that prepares the reader for his multi-dimensional
approach to suppliers, offers proven tactics for testing and sourcing
suppliers, and is candid about the possible pitfalls of using international
sourcing. A stickler for robust, data-driven decisions, he shows the sorts of
metrics supply managers should be tracking. He discusses a range of
computer-based tools that allow professionals to conduct their business. He warns managers about adopting
slick-looking technologies that remain incompatible with an organization’s
culture.
He remains convinced that his story-telling strategy will
allow readers to learn more than what any textbook offers. “Some of the stories
are good management lessons,” says DePaoli. “Others are the result of having
great people work for me and teamwork, while some are the result of just hard
work and massive amounts of tough homework.” Supply chain management continues
to form the backbone of most companies.
Knowing how to orchestrate its complexity can give an organization a
strong competitive edge. The supply managers who are willing to take the
journey and possess the indomitable spirit necessary to succeed will greatly
benefit from this unorthodox but powerful guide.
Mega Change: or, Getting Everyone Out of the
ReplyDeleteComfort Zone (Including Me)
Sneak preview Story!
One particularly difficult transformation process was my third—which meant that I should have learned many lessons already! Nonetheless, only two people in a department of twenty showed any enthusiasm for supply management trans¬formation. Most of the personnel had long-established relationships with suppliers, and the department was divided into subgroups identified by the materials or services that they purchased. Thus, people were so-called “experts” in their particular material or service. Unfortunately, many pursued their own materials and services without regard to the impact on the total product or machine.
I first moved the entire department to a new area in the company. I changed everyone’s title. I developed a glossary of sup¬ply chain management terminology that they were to use in all their correspondence. I challenged them to prove to me that they were not only getting the best price for their particular materials, but also the best total cost of ownership. I also made them create or refine metrics to measure their suppliers’ performances. I expected strong data to prove it. I insisted on monthly written reports from everyone. I gave them a template for the report, and they had to adhere to it. I insisted that they evaluated their savings in terms of the market for their materials. Thus they had to learn the market well for their particular materials. If the market price had gone down by 5 percent for the year, and they only saved 2 percent that was not good performance. For the first month, just about everyone was in an uproar just trying to cope with all the changes. This was beneficial; they had less time to resist the changes.
Finally I started to broaden their knowledge of our final product. The engineering department and I conducted training classes on the packaging machine that we sold. The engineers educated us on the particular sections of the equipment and their functions. Although they were experts in a particular material, I reminded them, our paying customers wanted to dialogue with us about the machine they had purchased, not just a particular material. We all had to become better at understanding total-machine functions and technology. The purpose was to make them realize the possible impact of some of their material change decisions on the function of the machine. I wanted to transform them into machine-function experts—not just particular-material experts.
This tactic paid off. Our salesmen and engineers became more comfortable with my department members and invited them into meetings with our paying customers. They directly interacted with the customers and could understand their needs and concerns. When serious issues developed, we brought in our preferred suppliers to help in the problem-solving sessions. I also insisted that our people accompany our field reps periodically on service calls to get a better feel for what they had to go through with a customer while servicing the machine. Their feet-on-the-floor time in a third-world country, working side-by-side with a service rep, gave them an enlightened perspective of the challenges we faced with our worldwide customers.
Amazingly we all survived this massive change, and we gained enormous respect with our colleagues in the company. Customers would call customer service and then ask to talk to some of my supply management people about issues.
Common Sense Supply Management is a no-holds-barred practical guide to supply management and process improvement. If you dislike consultants, buzzwords and theory, then this non-traditional book is meant for you. Straight forward and to the point, the book will be difficult to put down until you have finished the supply management adventure. Dr. Tom DePaoli, a veteran supply management pro, learned his lessons the hard way and wants to share his valuable insights with all business professionals. In his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales From the Supply Chain Trenches uses real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply chain management trenches. The stories are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By carefully following this book's accounts, supply management professionals can learn a career's worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving supply chain management reality.
ReplyDeleteDr. DePaoli Publishes His Third Book
ReplyDeleteCommon Sense Supply Management Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches by Dr. Tom DePaoli
In his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli, Marian University, School of Business and Public Policy, offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches uses real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply chain management trenches. The stories are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By carefully following this book’s accounts, supply management professionals can learn a career’s worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving supply chain management reality. Available on Amazon.com
Previously Dr. DePaoli has published Common Sense Purchasing and Growing Up Italian in the 50s also available on Amazon.com.
(Marian University website. https://my.marianuniversity.edu/SitePages/Home.aspx)