7 Efficient Habits

This article (which I am sorry if you cannot read the whole thing) gives a lot of great advice! The article is by Andrew Reese, a Supply and Demand Chain Executive, who interviewed a man named Jim Tompkins. Tompkins is the CEO and founder of Tompkins Associates, which is a consultancy and systems integrator. He has helped companies for over thirty years to achieve the most efficient supply chains.

Tompkins' seven efficient habits starts out with communication. He suggests that everyone within your company, in all departments, should understand what supply chain means, what the objectives are, and the "who, what, why, and where." "There should be no surprises as to what you're trying to accomplish," states Tompkins. The second suggestion he has is benchmark. This means you need to have a "framework" to base your strengths and weaknesses off of. To do this, you need to look at your competitors and what your industry is doing. Tompkins says to ask, "What the best-in-class companies are doing." Third on the efficient habit list is assess and partner. This is where you identify which areas to improve. When your company is up to par, then you are, "partnering to do visibility," as Tompkins says. Fourth habit is prioritize. Here you need to identify specific processes that you need to improve, but it is not as easy as it sounds. You need to look at the processes from different points of view to understand exactly what needs to be improved. The fifth efficient habit is lead, don't just manage. Leadership majors will be pleased to hear this little fact that Tompkins threw out. He said, "What you will find is that they're about 95% management and only 5% percent leadership." To explain what Tompkins said in this section, I can only think of one thing and that is Madonna. She has reinvented herself over several decades and young boys are still hot for her. That is leadership in Tompkins' eyes; reinventing yourself when you are number one so that you do not just disappear after your hype is gone. The sixth habit is add value by focusing on core competencies. This mean that you need to focus on what the customer values, which gives you the market position. The seventh and last habit is to continuously improve. Tompkins explains this step very plainly, "Step 7 would be, return to Step 1 and do it again." He adds that you must do each step more in depth to truly succeed.

Along with the list of the seven efficient habits, Reese put in a selection from a survey. It is the seven deadly sins of supply and demand chain enablement. These are the seven sins:
1. Failing to manage and sustain the adoption of the new technology
2. Enabling bad processes
3. Setting unrealistic goals
4. Trying to enable everything at once
5. Failing to involve supply chain partners in the implementation process
6. Believing in the infallibility of systems
7. Failing to enable the supply chain

All of these bonuses and minuses of the supply chain break down to changes in technology and resources. Wow, my mom was wrong. Economics isn't fiction after all.