As flexibility, short production runs and responsiveness to market demands become the survival factors for 2010, can global supply chains deliver performance as well as price? By NIck Allen
Browsing: Logistics & Supply Chain
Just as we were all getting used to talking about supply chain rather than logistics, it appears that the term is running out of steam and no longer describes what (for want of a better expression) supply chains do.
Wars, earthquakes and floods can all cause major disruption to supply chains and it is all too easy to think of supply chain disruption in these terms.
Companies may be slightly more confident about prospects for 2010 but, caution is still very much the key word.
When Elvis sang “A little less conversation, a little more action please” back in 1968, it’s a fair bet that he wasn’t referring to collaboration in the supply chain.
TV pundits got terribly excited the other day when it was announced that the headline GDP growth rate for the last quarter of 2009 was 0.3 per cent rather than the 0.1 per cent that the government originally estimated.
The Dalai Lama dropped by at the White House for tea the other day – innocuous enough you might think, but it was enough to enrage the Chinese Government.
This time last year corporate bosses were in the depths of despair, wondering just how bad things would get. Twelve months on the situation looks far more optimistic, although recovery for most is still regarded as fragile.
When we talk about China, we tend to concentrate on the rapid growth in its manufacturing industry with companies moving production there from Europe or the US.
A record number of supply chain professionals tuned in to our latest web TV debate on Supply Chain Visibility and it is now available for you to view online.