The Mystery Of SCM Integration

Supply Chain Brain, in March, got exercised about the importance of integration in supply chain management. Mon Dieu! It doesn't require the mental prowess of Hercule Poirot and his "little grey cells" to understand that genuine SCM has been defined by integrated approaches for more than thirty years. It has apparently dawned on crack research mavens that global supply chains are complex.

Quick, Agatha, call in Jane Marple; there's a clue hidden amongst the teaspoons! And the subtle conclusion, defying all police logic, is that modern supply chains need to implement an integrated approach to SCM. Maybe Benedict Cumberbatch in his Sherlock role can offer more details.

The keys are not exactly new news, unless it turns out that Kim Jong Un has pioneered the breakthrough concepts involved in integration:

Unified flows of material and information, data and physical goods I end to end processes

• Alignment on singular SC perspectives
• Optimized chain performance (as opposed to sub-optimized siloed functional measures and targets)
• An implemented supporting IT architecture
• Defined objectives
• Operating silo elimination
• Understanding and living with trade-offs

The core ingredient is a call for a "re-shaped" leadership. Breaking news! You do not reshape leadership; you develop and institutionalize it. Reshaped, organizationally, is less useful than GMO foods, and probably harbors genetic defects, as well as an abbreviated life span.

Repeating, leading supply chains have been practicing and perfecting integrated SC management for decades. Those just now figuring out that there's a gap may be doomed to either abject failure or permanent laggard status in a brutally competitive business world.

Bonne chance!