Like any good left-brainer, Koch uses a straightforward and concise analogy for the heavy, specific text present in The Supply Chain Revolution: Unlocking the Sustainable Profit Chain. Simply put, diving. Complete with chapters structured with a ‘buddy check system.’ A little on the nose, but gets the job done. “Being a good dive buddy is essential to enjoying the underwater ecosystem. These best practices translate well to businesses; it’s an excellent methodology to ensure peers learn key concepts and improve their skills.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kocharthur
Additionally, if you’re competitive like me, having a buddy system helps create an environment of internally friendly competition and ensures you understand the subject matter to teach and educate others,” he writes. Keeping the structure simple in a manner not detrimental to the facts, he also introduces a key model to encapsulate the profit(s) model of supply chain management. He highlights a particular category christened Profit/Shareholder value/EBITDA: “These are the actions and results created in the middle of the model, where this book mostly focuses. Significant changes are occurring in supply chain management, such as cyber security, artificial intelligence, and systems innovation, to name a few.
What if process integrity, team engagement and development, and organizational commitment by the CEO are not all synchronized? In that case, without sponsorship from the CEO new technology will too often become nothing more than a footnote in the history of supply chain management, much like block chain, capacity requirements planning, and manufacturing resource planning II have become. My sincere hope is that you enjoy reading and applying what you have learned in this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it and sharing my experiences and expertise.”
He succeeds with this. I enjoyed the book, and I actually grasped a lot of the concepts despite being about as right-brain and humanities department as you get. It’s not something he’s willing to dumb down to appeal to audiences not interested in the book’s theme. But it is something he’s generous of spirit about to add some humor and levity to.
Once again, back to the scuba diving analogy. And a surprisingly sharp one at that, when you actually think about the breakdown process. “Learning to scuba dive and mastering the complexities of supply chain management (SCM) share a non-negotiable requirement: an unwavering commitment to foundational principles. Fail to grasp the basics of scuba diving, and you risk severe injury or even loss of life. In the world of SCM, the stakes are no less severe: A neglect of fundamentals could result in crippling operational setbacks and financial devastation—potentially sinking your business,” Koch writes. “It’s common for people to get their open water certifications and never to proceed from there because they don’t have the confidence to dive on their own without the tether and comfort of an instructor at arm’s length.
Therefore, they never have the opportunity to explore the entire underwater ecosystem and all its natural beauty. As a diver, I worked on my core skills by logging more and more dives, combining what I had learned with taking additional specialty classes and then progressing to certification as a rescue diver. As a supply chain professional, I’m always learning and absorbing new ideas, information, and insights to strengthen my core skills so I may help my clients and teach others.”
Garth Thomas