Reducing Lead Times In Supply Chain

Manufacturing processes are often plagued by inefficiency.   Here's why:   Manufacturers cling to old batch habits. ___   Batch Production is a traditional manufacturing method where identical or similar items are produced in batches before moving on to the next step.   Some manufacturers argue that large batches balance workloads and minimize changeovers.   But data often shows otherwise.   Overlong production runs cause overproduction. Operators lose focus working on large batches while equipment drifts out of standards between changeovers.   Main drawbacks:   -Piles of WIP inventory waiting for the next step -Defects hide among the batches -Inefficient space management -Uneven workflow -Long lead times   Those lead to:   -Some stations being overloaded, others waiting -Low responsiveness to customer demand -More scrap and rework -Higher carrying costs -Facility costs up   Switching to One-Piece Flow can bring relief.    Workstations are arranged so that products can flow one at a time through each process step, making changeovers quick and routine.   Main advantages:   +High customer responsiveness +Minimal work-in-process inventory +Quality issues are detected immediately +Reduced wasted space and material handling +Easy to level load production to match takt time   The selection between batch processing and one-piece flow can significantly impact quality, productivity, and lead time in a manufacturing process.   P.S. Some case studies show improvements in labour productivity of 50% or more. Lead times can drop by 80%. And quality can approach Six Sigma.

The growing complexity of supply chain interdependencies is creating significant cybersecurity risks. In my latest article for the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity, I outline five key risk factors and what organisations must do to mitigate them: 1️⃣ Cyber Inequity – Large organisations are improving cyber resilience, but SMEs remain vulnerable. They must view cybersecurity as a business priority, while industry collaboration and policy support can help bridge the gap. 2️⃣ Limited Supply Chain Visibility – Expanding supply chains make it harder to assess supplier security. Without clear incentives, compliance gaps persist, increasing exposure to cyber threats. 3️⃣ Third-Party Software Vulnerabilities – AI and open-source adoption introduce new risks, yet only 37% of organisations assess AI tool security before deployment. A structured security framework is essential. 4️⃣ Dependence on Critical Providers – Over-reliance on a few key suppliers creates systemic points of failure. Resilient IT architectures and strong business continuity planning are critical. 5️⃣ Geopolitical Risks – Cyber threats are increasingly shaped by global tensions, disrupting supply chains and increasing attack sophistication. Organisations must integrate geopolitical risk assessments into their cybersecurity strategies. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝘁? Organisations must prioritize visibility, support smaller partners, and invest in resilience. Strong business continuity planning, robust IT management, and proactive threat detection are non-negotiable. Cybersecurity is not just an IT issue—it’s a strategic imperative. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g-yQ2QRa #CyberSecurity #SupplyChain #AI #RiskManagement

Procurement: Treat suppliers as extensions of your enterprise, not transactions. Procurement Excellence | 23 NOV 2025 - In complex global markets, resilient supply chains demand partnerships built on shared destiny, not just contracts. Here are 9 Steps to Create Long-Term Supplier Partnerships: #1. Transparent Communication ↳ Co-develop comms protocols e.g. QBR ↳ Clearly share expectations, goals & challenges #2. Long-Term Contracts ↳ Replace short-term with multi year agreements. ↳ Share long-term roadmaps & cost-savings initiatives. #3. Shared Performance Metrics ↳ Jointly agree and track SMART KPIs. ↳ Define escalation paths & RCA templates #4. Early Supplier Involvement ↳ Involve and recognize vendor’s contributions. ↳ Include key suppliers in product development cycles. #5. Guarantee Timely Payments ↳ Automate payment & consider early payment discounts. ↳ Audit internal processes for bottlenecks. #6. Co-Create Innovation ↳ Create supplier ideation portals & protect IP collaboratively. ↳ Fund joint proof-of-concept projects. #7. Recognize & Reward Excellence ↳Formally acknowledge & reward outstanding suppliers. ↳Bronze (Operational Excellence), Silver (Innovation), Gold (Strategic Impact). #8. Uphold Fairness & Ethics ↳ Interactions & contractual terms are mutually beneficial. ↳ Ensure cost pressures don't force unethical labor. #9. Jointly Manage Risks ↳ Jointly identify risks & develop contingency plans. ↳ Map tier-2/3 suppliers collaboratively. In today's volatile market, Resilient supply chains are built on deep, strategic supplier partnerships. Achieving lasting, mutually beneficial supplier partnerships requires: ✅️ Deliberate strategy ✅️ Centered on trust ✅️ Shared objectives ✅️ Continuous collaboration ♻️ Repost if you find this helpful. ➕️ Follow Frederick for Procurement insights. #ProcurementExcellence #SupplierCollaboration

From my new Harvard Business Review article, here’s how to create the second of four pillars that innovative organizations need – capability to forge strategic partnerships: You don’t have to contain yourself to your team or the organization when it comes to innovation. Great innovations can come from collaborations with suppliers, customers, universities, startups, or companies using relevant technology in a totally different way. For example, the jeans company Levi Strauss has been collaborating with Google to figure out what “smart” clothing might accomplish for users like truckers. But doing so needs focused and dedicated work. That means you need to find people within the team to do the long-term work of building those relationships, having speculative conversations, and hunting for partner capabilities which may not be immediately apparent. You don’t want to be Yahoo, which declined to engage with an ambitious early-stage company boasting a different business model: Google. What to do instead? Put specialists in strategic technology partnerships on the lookout. Have them work in collaboration with core business teams who can use these partnerships to make innovation happen. For example, many pharma companies have these types of partnership offices near MIT, and it’s an approach that can be replicated by a broad range of industries. Johnson & Johnson’s university collaborations not only facilitate investments and research partnerships, but through JLabs they also provide lab space and support services for promising start-ups without requiring an equity stake. This can give Johnson & Johnson an inside track with the start-up when the timing is ripe. The fruits of the program have been substantial — as of 2023, 840 incubations of companies in this network had yielded more than 290 deals or partnerships with J&J. (Have you used other methods to forge strategic partnerships? Please add them in the comments!)

Interesting to see JP Morgan’s open letter to suppliers highlighting the risks linked to the #SaaS delivery model. With significant concentration risks tied to key vendors and intense pressure to rapidly deliver new features and products, maintaining strong security must be a top priority for third-party providers.   Third-party suppliers are crucial to a comprehensive, efficient, and adaptable FCC approach, but risks such as privileged access to customer systems, hidden fourth-party dependencies, and insecure authentication methods can leave firms vulnerable to exploitation and create critical points of failure.   At Plenitude, we’ve observed some key trends in this area: ➡️ Greater scrutiny from 1st line control owners on FCC system security and the robustness of contingencies in the event of system outages; ➡️ Growing discussions around contingency planning with operations and financial crime teams to ensure firms can quickly adapt to new systems and processes, reducing sole reliance on a single system or vendor; ➡️ Increasing involvement from InfoSec teams in shaping FCC system requirements to ensure secure technology integration and stronger operational resilience.   💡 As the letter highlights, FCC software providers must deliver comprehensive security as standard, along with clear, ongoing evidence that controls are working effectively. 💡 Strengthening collaboration between InfoSec and 1st line systems teams will be critical to achieving a comprehensive risk mitigation approach, enhancing security, operational resilience, and the effectiveness of FCC frameworks. Read the full letter here: https://lnkd.in/eDBWDBkj #saas #3rdparty #riskmanagement Pat Opet

The 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 (𝐏𝐑𝐨𝐅) teaching case shows how a large healthcare consortium and a small group of manufacturers collaborated to rethink innovation in a highly regulated sector. At its core, the case demonstrates how PRoF turned the interaction between two very different communities into its main innovation engine. The large consortium represents the healthcare user community: nurses, doctors, caregivers, patients, and hospital managers who express the lived reality of care. Their contribution is experiential and value-based. Through structured “brainwave sessions,” they surface latent needs and convert them into broad keywords such as comfort, privacy, dignity, or anti-loneliness. These keywords form a shared language that avoids technical jargon and allows hundreds of users with diverse perspectives to converge around common priorities. The small consortium consists of manufacturers, architects, and designers who have the capabilities to transform these user insights into concrete room concepts. Their commercial goals are kept strictly outside the creative process, allowing trust to grow between the groups. Once the user community defines the keywords, the producer community develops prototypes, after which the large consortium returns to evaluate and refine them. This modular sequencing keeps tensions low, ensures rapid progress, and prevents commercial logic from dominating user needs. The interaction between these two communities solves a longstanding problem in healthcare innovation: suppliers often misunderstand user needs, while users lack the means to innovate. PRoF bridges this gap by letting users drive ideation and letting producers translate that insight into solutions. What emerges is a genuinely user-oriented innovation ecosystem in which neither community could succeed alone, but together they generate concepts that reshape expectations of care design. You can find the case study at HBSP: https://lnkd.in/e6nxTFM7 #UserCentricInnovation #Collaboration #OpenInnovation #CrossCommunityCollaboration #HealthcareEcosystems #CoCreation #Ideation

Steering through the CapEx procurement process is akin to navigating through a maze—every choice, especially vendor selection, critically shapes the project’s outcome. Reflecting on my journey, here's a distilled essence of what we've learned, particularly about the metrics that matter: - Vendor Performance: The true measure of a vendor isn't found in their promises. Selecting a vendor purely on financial terms without evaluating their quality and capabilities, is a misstep that might divert you from your intended outcome. Their ability to deliver on time, within budget, and to the required quality is critical. This should be studied from their past jobs and feedback from past clients. When they miss the mark, it's not solely on them—it reflects on our initial selection, converting what should be collaborative progress into a series of hurdles. - Price Benchmarking: It's crucial to match the cost with the job/project's true worth. Hence, it is necessary to do the price benchmarking not just among the vendors but also from the internal cost estimation. The team must have knowledge about the factors affecting the quoted amount for fair negotiations. - Procurement TAT: The duration from initiating engagement with vendors to issuing the purchase order speaks volumes about operational efficiency. In quite a few cases, it was detrimental to see extremely high pressures on execution timelines - while procurement TATs have been relaxed. A prolonged cycle time signals underlying inefficiencies, setting unrealistic expectations for the project teams and vendors and complicating the project for all stakeholders. Navigating procurement effectively hinges on structured methods to acquire vendor intelligence and assessment and bring process efficiency. In sharing these insights, the goal is to refine our collective approach to procurement. The right insights lead to the right decisions, setting us on a course for undeniable success. #ProcurementWisdom #VendorIntelligence #NavigatingSuccess

Third-Party Risk: The Hidden Cybersecurity Battlefield in Modern Supply Chains In our interconnected digital ecosystem, your security posture is only as strong as your weakest vendor. Modern enterprises rely on 100s of third-party vendors, creating an exponentially expanding attack surface. Supply chain attacks have become the preferred vector for sophisticated threat actors. Instead of targeting well-defended enterprises directly, attackers exploit vulnerabilities in trusted vendors to simultaneously breach hundreds of downstream organizations. Game-Changing Examples SolarWinds (2020): Compromised software updates affected 18,000+ customers including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, demonstrating how a single vendor breach cascades across entire sectors. MOVEit (2023): A single vulnerability led to data breaches affecting over 600 organizations globally, showcasing the massive scale of modern supply chain impacts. Why Third-Party Risk Monitoring is Critical Continuous Visibility: Traditional annual assessments are insufficient. Organizations need real-time monitoring of vendor security posture, breach notifications, and compliance status changes. Risk Amplification: When attackers target managed service providers or software vendors, the impact multiplies across all their clients. One compromised vendor can expose thousands of organizations simultaneously. Regulatory Liability: With GDPR, CCPA, and emerging supply chain regulations, organizations face increasing liability for third-party security failures. Proactive monitoring demonstrates due diligence. Building Effective Defense Continuous Assessment: Implement real-time vendor risk scoring across your entire ecosystem Zero Trust Extension: Apply least-privilege access controls to all third-party connections Incident Response Integration: Ensure your IR plans account for vendor breaches with clear communication protocols Contractual Protection: Update vendor agreements with security requirements and liability provisions The Bottom Line Organizations can no longer treat vendor risk as procurement afterthought. The question isn't whether your supply chain will be targeted — it's whether you'll detect and respond effectively when it happens. The strongest security programs extend beyond organizational boundaries to create defensible ecosystems, not just defensible enterprises. #ThirdPartyRisk #TRPM #SupplyChainAttack #CyberSecurity