Good Managers, Good Systems - Supply Chain Management

Good Managers inspires their followers to accomplish shared goals. They shape the organizations values and lead the company into the future. There are 12 characteristics that good quality managers demonstrate.

Some of these characteristics include:

1.
They pay attention to the customers needs and continually evaluate their customers and institute change when needed.
2.
They empower and have trust in their subordinates.
3.
They always look for ways of improvement.
4.
They look for collaboration among team members.
5.
They continuously train their subordinates.
6.
They look to prevent problems.
7.
They learn from their mistakes.
8.
They look to improve communications among the departments.
9.
They continually look to improve quality.
10.
They look at the quality of their suppliers, not the price.
11.
They keep their teams organized and are always looking for ways to improve their organization.
12.
They look for team efforts rather than competition among their subordinates.

In additional to the characteristics described above, leaders are ethically. Many companies offer ethics management programs which include a two part step that focuses on appraisal and prevention. Stephen R. Covey and his 7 habits of highly effective people encourages leaders to be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand then to be understood, the whole is greater than a part, and to sharpen the saw.

As we have discussed what makes good managers, without good systems in place to implement these managers, we might as well all go home. It starts with top management coming up with a plan, then involving middle and lower level mangers in the process. Communication among the managers is to create awareness, interest, desire and action.

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Supply Chain Management commonly known, as SCM has been a popular buzzword since the mid 1990's. Ben Worthen described Supply Chain Management as a cross between art and science. The supply chain consists of all parties involved to full fill a customers needs. This could be directly or indirectly.

The supply chain is a variety of states that include: Customers, Retailers, Wholesalers / Distributors, Manufactures, Component / Raw Materials. The objective of the supply chain is to delivery the product to the customer and to maximize the overall value generated.

To give an example of how we can relate this to an real life example, the supply chain of Polyols (A material used in making automobile seats), starts by mixing the raw materials and laying it in the trucks to be shipped to the maker of the Automobile Seats. The Automobile seats are then sold to the car manufacturers where they are installed in the cars. The cars are then sold to car dealers to then be sold to the customer who purchases the cars. What I have always found amazing is that along the supply chain every company who touches that seat gets a piece of the pie. No wonder cars cost so much.

References:

Worthen, Ben, January 30, 2006, Supply Chain Management Research Center "The ABCs of Supply Chain Management" [Electronic Version] Retrieved on July 27, 2006 from http://www.cio.com/research/scm/edit/012202_scm.html#scm_abc

Chopra, Sunil, Meindl, Peter, 2004, "Supply Chain Management, Strategy, Planning, and Operations" Second Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Total Quality Management 3rd edition, Besterfield, Micna, Besterfield, Sacre, Published by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.