So is your supply chain or distribution
network failing to deliver what you
expect? In terms of cost and service?
Look, it's not uncommon and quite often,
you know, networks grow up over time and
it's really hard to see why your costs
are going up
and why your service is not what you expect,
so let me share some tips with you in this
very quick video.
My name's Rob O'Byrne from Logistics
Bureau and rather than me just
sort of walk through the park here
sharing the tips,
What we'll do is we'll go and get a seat over at the
little cafe there at the other side of the
river and we'll get to those tips.
Okay, we found a quiet corner right next to
the Parramatta Park Cafe, I think, not quite
open, but we'll get a coffee there in a
minute. There's the river where we were just a
moment ago, just behind me. So, network
design, distribution network, supply chain
networks,
that's the topic of this video, and you
know I see so many businesses who have
issues with their network and they're
really not quite sure what's happening
in it, so let me just share with you some
some thoughts about why might there be
something wrong with your distribution
network, supply chain network. I'll use
the terms interchangeably because, really,
we're just talking about the scope of
your network. Distribution network, we're
really talking about finished goods from
your warehouse out to customers, supply
chain network is generally talking about
sourcing and all the way through the
customers, so if I swap in and out of the
terms, that's really the difference, but
some of the key issues that, or maybe
symptoms, that you may have in your
distribution network are these, and what tends
to happen is that distribution networks
grow up over time and they become
inefficient and costly and you don't
really know what's going on, there's too
many moving parts in it. So, if you are
managing a distribution network where
suddenly costs are getting a lot higher,
the cost per pallet, the cost per
case going through your network is
increasing,
that's certainly an indication that
there's something wrong with your
network. Also, if you're having a lot of
customer service issues, sure, there could
be problems, you know, with inventory
availability and so on, but again, it's
one of those symptoms where there maybe
something going wrong with your
distribution network. And also what
do I see in a lot of businesses and
I've redesigned probably a hundred
distribution networks over the years and
very often, and it happens quite a lot in
industrial products particularly, is that
you get not just a lot of warehouses in
the network, but they become sales branches.
So you imagine you want salespeople near
your market, you want stock near the
market, and the two kind of grow up
together and it doesn't make a lot of
sense. The two things are separate
functions and so when I see a network of
fifty or hundred branches, but also
have warehouses on the back, and I'm
starting to get worried there. Maybe
the business doesn't quite understand
the customer service requirements,
they probably don't understand how to
deploy inventory properly across the network,
so those are some of the things that may
indicate that you've got an issue with
your distribution network, supply chain
network, whatever the scope is. If you
want some further information on this,
just pop along to my blog logisticsbureau.com,
just click on the on the blog
button at the top right there.
I've done loads of videos and articles
and so on, on distribution networks and I'm
sure you'll find a lot of really good
information there.
The other thing is if you're watching
this video, kind of as soon as it's gone
up, there's another opportunity where you
can learn a lot more about this and
that's actually an event I'm running in
Sydney on the 26th of
October and that's going to be a whole
day coaching event where we'll be
covering this topic and lots of others
like outsourcing, and risk, and contracting
and what I've done is I've brought
together 20 industry leaders to share
their knowledge with you and it's not
one of these conferences where they're just
up on the stage sort of killing you with
PowerPoint, it's actually small-group
coaching sessions so that's gonna be a
lot of fun as well, so if you happen to
be in Sydney, 26th of October, come along to
that as well. I'll make sure there's a
link to that somewhere on this
on this page as well as the
link to the blog, so go to the blog, gets
more information, come along on to that event,
oh if you're wondering actually about
that event, is it expensive? No, it's only
$87 a ticket and that actually
goes to charity as well. Although there's
not a lot of tickets left, I should add.
I've got this great little app on my
phone from Eventbrite, we'll give
Eventbrite a plug, they're doing all our
registrations and it tells me how the
bookings are going, and if I look at that, I
can see there are 23 tickets left.
So if you wanna come along to that event
on the 26th of October, only $87,
goes to charity. And just a recap, the
symptoms of your network going wrong,
you got too many branches, too many warehouses
in the network, your costs are escalating,
you've got issues around customer
service, those are the things to look
for. Really hope you can improve your own
distribution network, I look forward to
seeing you again soon.