According to Gartners, supply chain planning is “the forward-looking process of coordinating assets to optimize the delivery of goods, services and information from supplier to customer, balancing supply and demand.” This can be followed when considering workshop supply chain, however…
That isn’t particularly helpful though, is it? Without the buzz words and abstractions, workshop supply chain planning starts with determining what sort of manufacturing or usage volumes your company can hope to achieve, knowing what revenue targets it hopes to achieve with those volumes, and making sure that you have everything you need to make both happen. It can vary from business to business, but most supply chain plans look at terms of a year or more.
- Define your plan and its scope. Use statistical forecasting and demand planning (see below) to define the scope of your plan. It should take advantage of product lifecycle trends, demand seasonality, etc.
- Set an inventory strategy
It takes a brave supply chain manager to eliminate silos entirely. Use statistical analysis to set minimum safe stock levels and define reordering models. - Balance and re-balance
Don’t hesitate to rebalance inventory to resolve supply gaps as fluctuations arise – because they will. - Keep an eye on constraints
You need to maintain extra capacity to be able to take advantage of surges in demand. This includes material and worker capacity. - Know what you are optimising for
Generally, your ultimate goal is usually to maximise revenue, but you might have to jump through a few hoops along the way.
What goes into a workshop supply chain plan?
In general, you should start by reviewing your ongoing projects. Consider what your planning and supply chain stakeholders have to say, and generally understand what it is that your organisation is trying to achieve.
Workshop projects and operations planning
You’ll be working with stakeholders from management, materials, operations, marketing, finance and sales (as appropriate to your organisation’s size, niche and industry). Few of these stakeholders will have supply chain management expertise – that’s why you are there. You’ll need to translate what you know about data and supply chain analytics to simple, direct ‘this is what you need to know, and this is why you need to know it’ presentations. Visualisations will usually have more impact than spreadsheet’s.
Workshop supply demand planning
More collaboration here. Unless you are a part of a very small operation indeed, you’ll need to collaborate with several other departments. Gone are the days when each department had their own silos and separate supply plans. To operate at all as a lean organisation, there must be a single centralised demand plan.
Your sales and operations plans give you everything you need to make a ‘demand plan’. Essentially you analyse what you are being asked to supply and pass that demand on to your ever-growing army of suppliers. The tricky part is that to be most effective, your supply plan must be stable and achievable. As operations get leaner and leaner, you will be asked to make that demand plan flexible and responsive to changes in your organisation’s markets while making it resistant to (or at least resilient to) changes in your supplier’s markets.