Logistics & Supply Chain Management

Long term relations with 3PLs

The characteristics of logistics suppliers can be very different, which is good because the diversity in fact enriches the offer in the market; nevertheless, that diversity provokes that election of a new third party logistics turns complex because is hard to match the necessities of customers with the proposal of suppliers, which is by the way one of the most common reason to “break” the…

Supply chain innovation: Make it happen!

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I just finished an online course about this subject from University of Twente through the website http://www.futurelearn.com, I highly recommend this site to take online courses by the way, so I want to share some thoughts resulted of this new academic experience.

Innovation is the result of conviction that different actions carry us to different results; probably…

Supply chain innovation: Make it happen!

Lee esta publicación en español I just finished an online course about this subject from University of Twente through the website http://www.futurelearn.com, I highly recommend this site to take online courses by the way, so I want to share some thoughts resulted of this new academic experience. Innovation is the result of conviction that different actions carry us to different results; probably…

Lee esta publicación en español

Technology is growing so fast! We just understand the logic of our computer when a new version is released into the market; we blink and a new mobile phone has new capabilities. The rhythm is relentless.

I will dedicate a post to technology but not this one, later. I have seen a lot of information about big data, ERP, MRP, software solutions for logistics that…

A quick look to future – Sustainable logistics

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I am being ironic about the word future; we are waiting future to solve problems that we already have in present. In 1980´s, in the film trilogy “Back to the future” they travel to 2015, their future, which looks far away; now in 2016 is our past, we just lived their future.

Sustainability is part of those things that we have tried to solve in the future. I will…

The long tail in supply chain

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Some species of scorpions have strong pincers and short tails and others have weak pincers but robust and long tails, it depends of habitat, food and predators of this peculiar arachnid. This is the perfect analogy for the Long Tail Theory published by Chris Anderson in 2004. How to know if scorpions will use pincers or tails, or a combination of both, to defend…

This time I just want to say thank you for reading me and for being part of my 2015. During this year, I enjoyed sharing my experiences with you and I learned a lot too writing for you.

2016 will be a great year for all of you, I am sure. I will return on Jan 6th with a surprise and my best attitude. #SoyLogístico Association will start its administration, so I will be sharing during next year…

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Last two years have been full of big deals in logistics, mergers and acquisitions market is much more active than last 15 years. XPO acquiring Conway, UPS to Coyote Logistics or Fedex to Genco, by instance; besides there are a few planned for 2016 as DSV to UTi and Fedex targeting TNT. Millions of dollars involved in transactions trending to expand the target…

MMOG/LE, What is it and how it can help you?

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In 2002, the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), a not-for-profit association in United States dedicated to publish standards for supply chain management, and its European counterpart, Odette, introduced MMOG/LE as result of a visionary project from the three largest automotive manufacturers of North America: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (now Fiat…

The first logisticians in Mexico

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Tenochtitlan, capital of Aztec Empire, was one of the biggest and richest mercantile centres of Mexico Pre-hispanic.

The trade was performed in the tianquistli (marketplace), due to lack of stores the tianquistli was installed every 5 days in the squares of city. The principal actors of commerce were known as pochtecas,they were travel-traders that walked long…

Last Friday, the strongest hurricane recorded in the story impacted the coasts of Mexico, Patricia. It was a storm that in 30 hours became into a hurricane of category 5, creating a pessimist expectation about the effects of this natural phenomenon when reaching land. Fortunately the damages were just economic; no lives were taken by the potency and speed of winds.

(…) For logisticians like us is a big challenge when a disaster affects our supply chain. Certainly nobody can stop it, it´s difficult to preview it, the affectation is uncertain, just happens. This weekend one of the most important ports of my country, Manzanillo, was threatened, we did not know if after Patricia it would be in conditions to keep operating.

As Logistics Managers we have to be pending of what is happening with the Trans Pacific Partnership, the biggest trade deal in last years. This agreement was signed by twelve different economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, US and Vietnam; its announcement has unleashed opinions, so, in this opportunity I want to share mine, being respectful of others.

First of all, let´s start saying that the agreement is just waiting for some approvals in Legislative Chambers of each country member, practically is a fact. At this point we have two options: to complain or learn how to deal with it and try to take advantage of its offer.

I find three key points on this discussion to understand much better what this is about.

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“Barry is a great friend, I feel honoured since he accepted to write in my blog. This man is from Netherlands working in Mexico since 5 years ago, I am sure that his knowledge, shared in this post, will be useful for all of you. Please enjoy with me his words.” Alan Rodríguez – @AlanRodEsp

This is the perfect time of the year to talk about this topic and make Tier suppliers aware of the upcoming new economic situation. We saw at the end of last month that the Federal Reserve System and the American Central Banks have decided to maintain the interest rate for the coming months. Yet, there is no change of the current historical low interest rate and tariff stays on 0 – 0.25 percent (since 2006). The FED still thinks that the US economy is not stable enough to handle a higher interest rate, which is understandable. However the figures in the US were good enough in the past months to increase the interest rate and we have seen also some slight economic improvements during the last couple of months given that the US economy grew +3%. Expectations are that the FED will still increase the interest rate by the end of this year depending on the labor market number the following three months.

I am publishing on the Independence Day of my country, I can´t dismiss the opportunity of write, proudly, about what we are doing here.

Mexico is one of the countries with more agreements of trade affairs signed in the world, with 46 countries. Exports in 2014 were $192,629 million USD with United States, Canada, Spain, China and Brazil as the most important destinations. In the other hand, imports summed $192,927 million USD with United States, China, Japan, Germany and Korea as main suppliers (Secretariat of Economy, 2015).

68 intermodal terminals, close to 80 airports...

We have walked through problem definition, identification of root causes and implementing an action plan to solve the issues in your processes. Now let´s take the final step of this series; this is about the discipline of your company to embrace the wish of make things better in every opportunity: continuous improvement.

There is a discussion about definition of continuous/continual improvement. Continual improvement is used referring to general processes of improvement and encompassing “discontinuous” improvements, while Continuous improvement has a more specific focus on linear, incremental improvement within an existing process (ASQ, 2014).

In the last post we talked about identifying wastes. Now we are going to get to the bottom to find the root of the problem. When you go to the deepest cause of problems, you deplete the chances to repeat them.

Determining root causes:

In other posts I mentioned the difficulties that many companies experiment finding the real cause of their problems although this is a key step in the process to solve wastes; wrong root cause, wrong solution, that´s it.

Throwing money to trash is not the intention of business, obviously; nevertheless, despite this premise, is easy to find companies expending money in operations without adding value to the final product, which factually is a waste.

That´s why I am starting a series of three posts to guide you through implementation of “lean logistics” in your enterprise. Lean logistics is the application of lean manufacturing principles to supply chain management. Basically lean logistics pursues the two F´s: effectiveness and efficiency. Being effective, in short words, means getting the right things done, the “what”; being efficient is doing those things without wasting resources, the “how” (Baudin, 2004).

The question is: Are you being effective and efficient in your supply chain?