Jan

Lose weight or quit smoking in 2022? Resolutions for the new year are often not achieved. In the world of spares, it strikes me that also organisations struggle with the same issues year after year. Think of increasing stocks, data quality issues or fragmented responsibilities. How do you ensure that you determine proper resolutions, that you achieve them and avoid that you get caught up in the daily hassle?

How do you determine progressive yet attainable resolutions?

Change is difficult. Do you know what you want? How do you get everyone on the same page and do you know your starting point?

1. Translate your dreams into concrete and achievable resolutions

Where do you want to be at the end of the year? How would you like your organisation/department to work together on better performance? Philosophize about this yourself and hold a brainstorm session with your team. Then translate this into a priority list based on impact, effort, credibility and support.

2. Create insights and tackle the silo mentality with smart gaming

Maintenance wants higher stocks, the warehouse manager is struggling with dead stock and buyers are dealing with a high workload. The world of spares is usually one with conflicting interests. Fragmented ownership of the spares and the lack of common insights do not prosper decision-making.

Through the Service Supply Chain Game, those involved in the supply chain quickly gain insight into the supply and demand characteristics, bottlenecks in the chain and how chain players can work together effectively.

Figure 1: Service Supply Chain Game

3. Determine your starting point

Do you know your current situation? How often do you have stock outs on spares? And what level of working capital can be justified? Quantify the improvement potential and map the maturity level of your processes.

How do you ensure that you stick to your resolutions and achieve what you want?

It has probably happened to you that at the beginning of the year you made a resolution for yourself, and after a few weeks you fall back into old habits. How do you ensure that you achieve what you want to achieve?

1. Make an improvement plan/roadmap

Determine with the end in mind which steps are required to get there. What approach, activities, and resources are needed to realise your dream? Set SMART goals with a phased plan.

2. Organise (improve) capacity

People naturally spend only 5% of their time on conscious/planned behaviour and the remaining 95% on unconscious and automatic behaviour. Looking back at the end of the year and hoping that you made it, is a recipe for failure. Make sure you have tactical capacity in-house for a continuous focus on materialising improvements. Make sure that you regularly take a step back from your daily activities and assess if what you are doing is relevant in order to reach goals. Are you giving sufficient attention to the focused improvement activities? Are you making progress? And what are the impeding factors that stand in the way of progress?

3. Continuously improve with a closed improvement cycle

Without measuring your progress towards achieving your goals, you will not know where to make adjustments. Make KPIs actionable to enable your organisation to put your finger on the weak spots easily. Close the Plan Do Check Act cycle by periodically tackling root causes, initiate improvement actions and follow up.

Would you like to discuss your New Year’s resolutions for your service supply chain? I’d be happy to be your sparring partner.