A Word To The Wise

If you don't know the difference between entomology and etymology, stop reading now.  Y'all are going to drive me buggy.  We are, in supply chain management, plagued, annoyed, or confused (as are folks in all walks of work and life) by words and terms that sound as if they might be somehow related, but turn out to be worlds apart.  Or in the case of etymology, words apart.

For example, some (not I, of course) would maintain that those in the Procurement space have been stunted in their intellectual development from a cruel diet of rice-based pabulum, pureed spinach, and misinformation, beginning in professional infancy.  This, they say, manifests itself in the confusion between supply managment and supply chain management.

The misguided then are given to believe that, if they are not one and the same, that supply managment is the primary driver of its offspring, supply chain management.  Breaking news, kids: President Lincoln has been shot, and might not pull through.

Oversimplifying, a specialty of the house, and procurement are not all about buying at lower and lower unit prices, or, in an advanced application, buying enough to meet carefully examined demand quantities.  In sum, this subset of supply chain management is about buying the right parts and materials from the right sources at the right price, and at the right time(s).

To illustrate, when no one has enough capital available to do everything all at once, a senior executive might ask if anyone has a spare $25 million (or whatever number makes sense in your environment) to plow into a technology upgrade, or product development, or whatever.  You do not want to be the one raising his or her hand, only to later confess that the $25 million is strewn about the facility like so many leftover revelers on the morning after Mardi Gras (or St. Patrick's Day), cleverly disguised as inventory that will be used sometime between now and year-end.

Reality check.  We can't accomplish all that we need to without active engagement and partnership with Sourcing and Procurement resources.  But, they are not driving the corporate bus; they are but one part of a comprehensive, integrated, and aligned solution set that helps enable corporate strategies.

This level of understanding is critical to new-century supply chain success, and therefor business success.  For the entomologists among us, our job is no longer to kill the bugs once they've been discovered infiltrating the food supply.  The over-riding responsibility is to make sure that there are no bugs present before we begin to mix the recipe's ingredients.

This news can come as a great shock to last-century practitioners, but we must deal with it.  If you are still playing catch-up, by the way, President Lincoln didn't make it.