THE WHOLESALER: LEAN PRINCIPLES IN WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION SUPPLY CHAINS– DO YOU PULL OR PUSH?
Guest contributors to The Wholesaler recently asked the question, “Do you push or pull?” when discussing lean principles in distribution. How lean can you go?
The Wholesaler Excerpt:
Some recent client engagements have brought to mind Einstein’s quote – “Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, is insanity.”
Whether forced to, or by choice, some major corporate entities are changing how they conduct their businesses and are evaluating the landscape they operate in – looking for ways to change it….change meaning speeding up, eliminating waste and redundancies, new partnerships, new types of relationships, etc. Everything is being evaluated. Now, just because these entities are measured in billions, and you’re not, isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t be doing the very same exercise.
The development cycle for “supply chain” concepts and methods has traditionally come from larger corporations, actually many in retail, who have invested millions in business process re-engineering, software, and I/T, as a platform to conduct their business. What happens is that these “new chapters” in Supply Chain are then passed along from company to company, for years, and then “elements” of the new developments leak down to different industries and smaller sized business entities. This slow progression often takes fifteen to twenty years, during which the benefits may be lost to you.