Clearviewpo

02/16/2018

Communication is crucial to supply chain success and yet it is surprisingly one of the biggest areas in need of improvement.

When it comes to cooperating with staff in other departments, many procurement professionals admit it is very difficult. And when it comes to communicating with those outside the organisation, i.e. the suppliers, communications can become even further strained.

The Importance Of Communication In Supply Chains

It all boils down to the simple fact that with proper communication between stakeholders and external suppliers, more creative ideas can be brought to the table, thus improving the process. If people from different points of the process are able give ideas for improvements based on firsthand experience, it stands to reason that this will made for a much better managed process. If communication is limited, so is the ability of the procurement department to influence the end to end procurement process.

Steps To Improving Procurement Communications

If we are to tackle this communication issue in supply chains, there are some steps that procurement professionals need to consider:

Prioritise stakeholders/suppliers. Assess how supportive your stakeholders are and their importance to the organisation. Suppliers; consider the impact it would have on your business if they stopped supplying and how strategic they are.
Regularly meet with stakeholders and suppliers. By getting together with them on a regular basis (weekly for instance) you can highlight and tackle their concerns and worries as they occur. Don’t be scared to over-communicate, make sure they are regularly updated even if it’s just a quick summary email. With suppliers it’s also important to regularly asses how you can improve your relationship from both sides, and offer constructive feedback to the supplier as well as asking for it yourself.
Always offer options. After negotiations, produce a list of options and relevant cases that back up each. This way, you are giving the stakeholders some influence and aren’t taking the decision out of their hands, making them feel they have status.
When it comes to the communication method itself, you should assess which method best suits the situation and will deliver the optimum results. There are also some basic principles to consider when it comes how you communicate with stakeholders and suppliers:

Be clear. This may sound like an obvious basic principle, but it’s vital to make sure the ‘narrative’ of the proposal comes across so stakeholders understand and are excited by what you are proposing. Use a brief headline to sum up the proposal and focus on the benefits the project will deliver as well as how they will be achieved.

Tailor it. When getting across the key benefits of the project, don’t just focus on general benefits and costs. Consider the stakeholders you are addressing and tailor it to show how you will tackle their own individual concerns.
Be personal and pragmatic. Often with stakeholders, it’s more beneficial to give them a call or pay a quick visit than to send less direct communication such as emails. A personal and pragmatic approach will get faster and better results when aiming to implement change.

The importance of communication both with internal stakeholders and external suppliers cannot be overlooked. With the right steps taken and changes applied you can turn around poor communication and improve the procurement process

07/08/2016

We've combined the power of dynamic purchase order routing with stellar ltl carriers such as FedEx Freight, Con-way, Estes Express and others.

03/08/2016

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/michigan-state-university-study-found-28-second-risk-making-bob?published=t

03/02/2016

Top 5 ways to stop "no packing slip" chargebacks

A Google for "Packing slip charge back" returns 71,200 results! Most of the results are buyer's listing of vendor chargebacks for not including a packing slip with the order. The penalty amounts range from $25 upwards of $200+. This seems like a lot of money to be charging for a missing packing slip, but in terms of lost efficiency by the receiving company, this seems to be fair compensation.

Having worked for a LTL carrier and running a third-party logistics company for the past 20 years, I can tell you that it isn't always the fault of the shipper that the packing slip did not make it to the receiver. There is a process by which the LTL carriers "cube out" their trailers. The vendor takes the time to include the packing slip taped to a carton then shrink wrap is placed around the box. However, the carrier must minimize the empty space in their trailers, so they cut the shrink wrap and load like you and I would load our U-haul trailer - filling every empty space. At destination the pallet is rebuilt and delivered to the receiver. However the packing slip could have fallen off during this process.

Vendors can ensure their customer receives a packing slip by following these steps:

Place in envelope and SECURELY fasten to a carton under the shrink wrap

Give a copy to the driver along with the bill of lading. Carrier will image the packing slip on their website

Email the buyer a copy of the packing slip

For suppliers who offer e-commerce B2B ordering, include the ability for customers to download packing slip

Store the document in a collaborative cloud service. This allows the buyer access to the packing slip at their time of need.

Unfortunately, once the order leaves your dock, you are at the control of the carrier's handling and it is unfortunate if a chargeback is levied against your invoice due to causes outside of your control. The extra steps above will cost you less to manage than the chargeback, so being proactive is the smart choice.

02/19/2016

Does this sound like what is happening in your company? Love to hear stories of how the inefficiencies were overcome by a new and disruptive process.

Association of Corporate Treasurers released a report where they discussed "Price benefits come from securing better prices from preferred suppliers. Currently, employees frequently buy more expensive goods and services from non-contracted suppliers in an effort to avoid inefficient and bureaucratic procurement processes.

02/17/2016

Why collaboration within the supply chain is a difficult initiative
1. Lack of commitment by senior management to carry the torch, or the initiative is "lost in translation:
2. Lack of collaboration tools to support the effort
3. Navigating differences between two or more companies with separate cultures and operating value
4. Previous difficulties between two companies can provide too much "history" between the trading partners

How can you make collaboration work?
1. Collaborate in areas both partners have strong operation efficiency
2. Identify win-lose situations and turn them into win-win situations for all parties.
3. Be willing to accept that helping a partner win, makes them a stronger company, thereby a stronger partner
4. Select partners based on capacity to, strategic goals that are focused on collaboration. Don't try to fit square peg in round hole
5. Invest in the right infrastructure that will meet your collaboration needs, not wants.
6. Establish and document clear and measurable goals that both partners want to achieve together
7. As an athlete trains for a big race, your collaboration initiative should be focused on present AND future goals.

Collaboration is not easy to implement into an enterprise, even harder to add outside partners. Collaboration in the supply chain means all parties have the ability to communicate, share information (and documents) and provide each other visibility of exactly what is happening with orders as they move through the chain. Use of automation to increase human interaction seems like an oxymoron but technology today is providing solutions to collaboration challenges

Next post will be able benefits trading partners experience when using a successful collaboration model.

02/04/2016

visit our prelaunch page at http://clearviewpo.launchrock.com/

02/01/2016

Recently read about work place interuptions. A survey was quoted as saying that 40-60% of our work day is spent recovering from interuptions. So I spent my day keeping track of what type of interruptions I experienced. I wasn't able to keep track of how long it took me to get back on track after being interrupted, just what caused it.

In my 9 hour work day, I was interrupted 114 times!

Coworkers accounted for 33%
Email notification pop-ups 50%
Meetings 10%
Phone call 5%
Mother nature 2%

I started thinking about what the expense was on my lost productivity and any errors or omissions I made returning to work. Sometimes an interruption can increase productivity if brought about at the right time; giving me a mental break.

Surely we all experience interruptions at work. Technology can be a cause (email popup notification) or a solution if applied correctly to one's day. Logistics, purchasing, accounting, shipping, sales and customer service all have legitimate rights to interrupt one another if the company has not implemented a company-wide solution to combat this epidemic.

Take a look around your office and notice the productivity loss and more importantly the dip in morale caused by interruptions. Take steps to give people interruption-free time, to get "wired in" turn off email notifications and schedule time, that is planned to review and reply to email.

Look for software that does not replace your current systems, rather a solution that improves your company processes.

Remember the flower Mario ate in Mario Brothers video game, it made him a more powerful person. Find your flower and bring it into your company so everyone becomes more powerful (productive because of fewer interruptions)

01/18/2016

Risk and uncertainty within the supply chain stems from an enterprise's ability to balance efficiency and resilience. A recent report published by MIT entitled "Reducing the Risk of Supply Chain Disruptions" tell us, "today's managers know they need to protect their supply chains from serious and costly disruptions, but the most obvious solutions- increasing inventory, adding capacity at different locations and having multiple suppliers undermine the efforts to improve supply chain cost efficiency. Survey shows that while managers appreciate the impact of supply chain disruptions, they have done very little to prevent such incidents or mitigate their impacts."

The article discusses how managers can reduce risk by containing individual risk factors and not allowing it to spread through the entire supply chain. Similar to the oil tanker that holds its cargo in a multi-hulled freighter, rather than one large tank. W.W. Granger stores its fastest moving products in one of nine distribution facilities while their slow moving products are stored in their Chicago warehouse.

Researchers have identified three stages of response to an incident: detecting the disruption, designing a solution or selecting a predesigned solution and deploying the solution. Overestimating disruptive risks and planning for a solution at this level makes the company better equipped to respond to the disruption. Remember, you only achieve what you train for, there is no magical solution that appears at a time of crisis that you have not prepared for.

You can read the entire article at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/reducing-the-risk-of-supply-chain-disruptions/

Overinvesting in supply chain protection may be more profitable than not investing enough.

12/31/2015

Post shipping freight audit seems to be the "in" thing these days. Companies such as Refund Retreiver, 71lbs, and many others offer to get you money back after you have already spent it. Google.com search for "Freight bill audit" returns 592,000 items. I just spent the past hour reviewing the first 10 pages of links and found that 100% offer their own spin on how they will do the same thing, audit your freight bills from LTL and Parcel carriers to see if you paid too much on your bills.

Some charge a flat fee, some share in the money they get back from the carrier. I feel there is a market for this business, but for the wrong reason. We work in a world that time is more valuable than other assets we have. These audit companies seek out customers with too much to do and too little time to do it, right.

What I don't understand about freight bill post audit is that it is like the cough and cold medicine manufacturers marketing medicine that cover up your cold and flu symptoms - AFTER you already have the flu. Wouldn't it be best to not get sick at all? Wouldn't your business run smoother and more profitably if you audited your bills BEFORE you paid them?

The best way to do this is to incorporate a freight bill audit program into your accounting system that insures you pay only what you contracted with the carrier to pay. Take the step forward, not backwards to make sure you don't have to manage your freight invoices and get caught in the freight bill post-audit scam.

Happy New Year and here's to a 2016 where your business moves forward.

Bob

12/23/2015

Why won't your 3PL encourage you to ship FOB Destination Prepaid & Add? It's because they only make money when they bill you for the freigth charges. When the vendor ships Prepaid & Add, the logistics company isn't a part of the shipping process. Unless the bill-to on the bill of lading says their name, your shipment is "worthless" in their eyes (and to their P&L as well).

Bing returns 500,000 (Google 181,000) results when searching for "Inbound Collect freight routing". Logistics providers spend large budgets for SEO, and high results ranking and they do it with one mission - to mislead you, the buyer into thinking your trusted vendor is out to screw you on your freight costs. They maybe and maybe not, depending on the situation.

So, the logistics industry and trucking companies are trying to convince you that you need to turn all your inbound into FOB Origin (Freight Collect) because this give the control to you and will "save you money". One website states that the shipping charges added by the vendor "are significantly higher" than if the buyer routed and paid for the shipment directly.

To me, this seems like a very general statement without data to support the claim. It is also a marketing ploy to get you to book your shipments with their company.

This is the EXACT reason we developed ClearviewPO. We believe the best way to save shipping dollars is by providing you a "neutral" and real-time platform to collaborate with your vendor and determine shipment-by-shipment what the best FOB terms are. Neutral means we have one focus - that is you. ClearviewPO enables your vendor rate to be compared to your rate in real-time and routes it then.

Eliminate the need to predetermine your FOB terms using a paint brush by removing the manual process of determining best routing options at time of shipment booking. Vendor is cheaper - great! They move the shipment and add the documented freight charges to your product invoice. Your rates are cheaper - also great because no matter who pays freight charges you just got the lowest rate possible and you get the same visibility.

Don't believe the sales person telling you that there is no way to collaborate with your vendors, because it is just not true

Happy Holidays to you and your family

Bob Schwieger