Kanban is at the core of many solutions, including Ultriva.  That tells only a small part of the story which is about solutions that enhance the process and automates them across the value chain.  Beyond kanban is an execution platform which sets up the pull process from the point of consumption to point of production.  It means scheduling the production based on actual demand, real orders or pull signals.

Lean quality concepts constantly reference continuous improvement.  After a kaizen event and several months pass, there is often fatigue because the notion of continuously looking for better practices (en route to best-practices) is exhausting.

Remember the 1983 Wendy’s commercial that had an actor that said “Parts is Parts"?

What is Inventory Velocity?

While inventory velocity is not a new term, it is always good to begin such topics with a clear and simple definition. Inventory velocity is the speed at which the inventory is cycled in a given period for each item. Inventory velocity is the underlying measure to improve Inventory turns, which accountants define as follows:

Starbucks has found a hit with their seasonal pumpkin spice lattes. I should know.  My discriminating and highly opinionated thirteen-year-old daughter Priscilla loves them. She likes the pumpkin spice lattes so much that she convinced a small platoon of girls to join her at the end of the first half day at the Starbucks just a short walk from their middle school.

Introduction

Companies that use ERP and MRP systems are constantly looking for solutions to increase inventory turns, streamline the procurement process and improve supply chain agility. Many of these companies assume that the only way to reduce cost, lower risk or increase flexibility is to improve forecast accuracy. But various factors including customer demand variations, changing market conditions and questionable sales projections make it exponentially difficult to improve forecasting. One solution that most of these companies often don’t contemplate is moving away from a forecast based or MRP replenishment methodology to Electronic Kanban (eKanban) for high consumption items.

While manual shop floor kanban systems are common practice within manufacturing plants,manual supplier kanban systems are much rarer. One of the primary reasons for this is the difficulty faced when trying to scale a manual visual kanban system beyond the four walls of the plant. However, the operational and financial benefits of supplier kanban are so great that manufacturing firms are now looking to electronic supplier kanban systems (a.k.a. supplier ekanban) as the answer to their supplier kanban needs. The following list was compiled from feedback by Ultriva customers over the past 12 years of implementing successful supplier ekanban programs.

This is a common dilemma that constantly plagues supply chain professionals.  The traditional supply chain paradigm supports the belief that reduction of inventory will lead to increase in part shortages and subsequently lower service levels.  This paradigm is constantly being reinforced by credible sources such as the Wall Street Journal as evidenced in this WSJ article by Mark Gongloff where he seems to suggest that more inventory = more growth.  However, this is just not true….under the new supply chain paradigm!