Supply Chain

Practical Applications of Twitter in Manufacturing?

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 5, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a couple of interesting discussions about the introduction of Twitter to Manufacturing. When someone poses a question like this to me, it throws me for a minor loop, because for very basic, practical reasons, it just doesn’t seem to apply. More keyboards & data entry on the floor? [...]

Finally! Relevant Applications for YouTube and Twitter in the Enterprise!

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 11, 2008 ⋅ One comment

If you are involved with manufacturing these days, you’ve no doubt heard about Lean Manufacturing. I’ll not go deep into this area here, but one fascinating (for me) aspect is the thread (in some quarters) that ERP and computer systems are the enemy of Lean. On the whole, I don’t disagree – process improvement, kanbans, [...]

Integrated Supply Chain Benefits Go Beyond the Internal Stuff

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 12, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

I met Lora Cecere this evening, well-known AMR analyst for Supply Chain – a good conversation about the deeper potential for supply chain integration technology. The topic: are there bigger benefits here? Is it really only limited to optimization of your own supply chain? Don’t get trapped into thinking that the business benefit of supply [...]

Interesting RFID Applications

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ August 26, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

RFID is a challenging bit of Supply Chain technology – depending on your industry. Capital goods manufacturers see a relatively inexpensive solution for accurate asset tracking, while producers of commodity goods see additional costs that are challenging to justify. Many are taking a wait-and-see approach, trusting that the price-per-chip will continue to fall and the [...]

Build a Framework: Your chart junk is my roadmap / vision statement

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 27, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

I remember in the late 90′s, seeing many examples of the little train of wedgies that folks used to characterize their business processes: I’ve used them myself (some of the above samples are mine, I’m comfortable in admitting it) – of course, I typically don’t make this stuff up, I adapt from other examples, like [...]

Theory of Constraints (TOC) Reference Site

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 16, 2005 ⋅ One comment

Thanks to Dahlgren for this great link – for fans of Goldratt, a very well done site on the Theory of Constraints. One of my favorite books on management, happens to be nicely theoretical. Also, as I sit here googling for interesting stuff, another promising link … re: Deming and Goldratt, quite a twosome.