Ahne, I had a chance to think about your questions, see my responses below
in blue.
Supply chain: Do you mean the chain that stretches from the design engineer
and the manufacturing engineer of the product to the design engineer and
the
manufacturing engineer of the part or material needed? Plus all those
necessary pieces in between? (Can you say DFM?) My dissertation was
limited to a tiny, tiny part of the supply chain, that being the actual supply of
parts to the manufacturer, and the ability to remain AGILE, despite
extremely volatile demand. It was necessary to limit it thusly due to the fact
that otherwise you cannot get your arms around the subject, and show any
relationships.
What conflict occurs is that we follow (generally) a business model of
reduced inventory, reduction of cost, long distance Lower cost region
outsourcing, and expect yet to keep domestic demand met with customer satisfaction
as a requisite which means that delivery to the customer has to be on time.
My theory in industry is very basic which says as volatility of demand
increases so does the need for AGILITY in communication to keep the supply
chain flowing and meeting the demand of the customer. That is one tactic in a
war to keep customers satisfied, yet at the same time keep your company
solvent with an efficient supply chain.
However you are right! The entire process must be looked at in aggregate
with multiple cross-functional teams and concurrent design engineering, to
achieve simultaneous goals of efficient supply chain with customer
satisfaction. We have paradigms of servicing the customer, and we have paradigms of
supply chain efficiency. What I am saying is that the two paradigms have to
be combined to produce a GREATER truth in supply chain efficiency.
Otherwise we end up with a board (or a product) that looks great from a design
phase, but if your demand is VOLATILE, you cannot keep the quality, nor the
supply, nor the flexibility agile to satisfy the customer. This is much more
an application of Michael Porter's "value chain" in which everyone is
involved to make sure that the end customer ends up with an on time, quality
product, and you end up with a quality robust, agile product which can be
flexible in quantity and design, as the final product goes through the life
cycle from introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Many companies have
lost their shirts in one of the cycles due to a product that does not have the
ability to move with overall agility. Lean concepts are fine, but only go
so far, Total quality and business management principles are much more
applicable, and ultimately however you have to deal with the unknown, and
design and produce with a model of business that allows you to deal with all
environments, and all types of demand.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. My goodness you are so right,
EVERYONE has to be involved, and not only that: We have a tendency to
compartmentalize people and give them conflicting goals of cost reduction, customer
satisfaction, and those priorities all have to mesh together.
The real mind blower is, NONE of those people should compromise in their
goals. Of course we do, but to really drive a product you have to achieve
not a compromise of goals but goals which are built in to the product so that
they are all achievable. And then as the product moves through the life
cycle, the process must be ongoing and creative. I have been in situations
where this does not happen, and its not very pretty.
It looks great when we create it, we have problems when we implement it,
and then when we outsource it, we have all kinds of intercultural
communication problems which make it even more challenging!
Its good to be talking with you. The survey was admittedly a compromise I
apologize. It became tedious, but with language if you change the questions
too much then you get more interpretation. That is why survey research is
so limited, and then when you do case study research you can lose object
ivity, actually that's part of case study or action research. However I thank
you immensely for your time, your feedback, and your knowledge you have
imparted to me. I truly believe knowledge is power, and brings us out of the
darkness.
Respectfully,
Terry B. Baker (814)-329-7357
Doctoral Candidate
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Blvd. East
Adelphi, MD 20783 USA
Phone: 800-888-UMUC (8682)
Tom Mierzwa (Chair, Doctoral Program)
Monica Graham (Admissions and Advisory Contact)
I believe those are the important functions you need to stay in contact
with
if you want to be a successful project engineer or manager. But always
several other functions get involved, like upper management, the finance
department, procurement, etc. From personal experience I know they do not
always have the same goal/award structure that I was laboring under.
The real trick a project engineer/manager has to master is to get all those
people involved and onto the same page, understanding the project goals and
pitfalls. Once that has been accomplished the project will get wings.
(When quality and functionality are important, don't leave the procurement
job to the "buyer". His job is to save pennies and dimes, leading to his
awards and he may not understand functionality.)
Once the goals and pitfalls are known and internalized by all involved you
should also know the vagaries of the market. Who is going to buy the
product, how many, how many variations, when are they needed and what
depends on the performance of the product. That knowledge plus the ease or
difficulty of making the parts and materials you need to manufacture the
product determines how to work with your vendor. And you need to remember
that your vendors are part of the product line. Treat them and involve them
just like you have to treat and involve the rest of the people in your
project.
For new products a lot of what the market wants is guess work, but the
people involved in the product collectively should be able to come up with
pretty good initial guesses. Once the project is up and running you learn
more about customer demand and adjust and add the probabilities.
And if you run into production problems, remind everyone: if there is no
product output, there are no customer deliveries, no invoices go out, no
payments come in and there is no money for wages. So, hop to everyone.
Hope the story helps.
(I did not like the questionnaire very much.)
Ahne.
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Terry Baker
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 19:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Remain competitive and help. Your opinion needed Terry B.
Baker
Sharon
Thank you so much! That clears that up I have never had a problem with
Survey Monkey. You have a genuine think tank going on here, it is so
impressive
to see this much innovation going on in cyber space. It gives me faith in
our ability as a humanity to work together.
Additionally I have learned a lot working with your crew. Most of all, I
have gotten my own UMUC (University of Maryland, University College) email
address, I never realized how important that was with survey research! I
think your team has more to say about efficient supply chains than they
realize, sometimes its intuitive. Supply chain efficiency is not
necessary
something that's in a textbook, its effective communication in real time.
This is
something that your cyber team has learned, that cannot be achieved through
any manufacturing procedure implemented. Watching so many people work with
through common problems with uncommon agility is entirely empirically
fascinating. Again people are the main reason for a systems success, and
never
the reason for a systems failure.
In any case, if you have not, I would ask you to take my survey if you
wish, and again, I thank all of you for your feedback. There IS a 500
dollar
cash prize and I am shutting my data collection down at the end of the
month
so I cannot yet say what the definite odds are. I CAN say its less than
one in 300, probably closer to 1 on 100.
Sincerely and warmest regards,
Sincerely and Respectfully,
Terry B. Baker (814)-329-7357
Doctoral Candidate
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Blvd. East
Adelphi, MD 20783 USA
Phone: 800-888-UMUC (8682)
Tom Mierzwa (Chair, Doctoral Program)
Monica Graham (Admissions and Advisory Contact)
In a message dated 9/13/2010 3:15:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Yes, IPC uses Survey Monkey quite a lot. I've used it for 15 or 20
projects over the past three years or so, with no problems.
Sharon Starr
Director of Market Research
IPC - Association Connecting Electronics Industries(r)
3000 Lakeside Drive
Suite 309 S
Bannockburn, IL 60015-1249 USA
+1 847-597-2817 tel
+1 847-597-2845 fax
[log in to unmask]
www.ipc.org
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