What I have observed during my career in the Pharmaceutical World, is that the level of perception of what a Top Class Supply Chain Management can bring to a Corporation, is not often to its maximum.
Following this observation, I have recently decided to develop what I called “The Supply Chain Academy for the Pharmaceutical Industry”.
My goal with this project was to develop an innovative and fully adjustable Education Process combining the most advanced Internet technology and more traditional methodology.
Therefore I have worked with the Dutch Company INVOLVATION, inventor of the Web based Business Game “Fresh Connection” and my French partner Bill Belt Excellence that has acquired the rights to use this new technology.
With this new Education program I am trying to reach 3 different Populations:
• Group 1: CEO, VP’s (Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Sales & Marketing), Site Directors & Team. For this group I am clearly targeting Team Building around Supply Chain Concepts, and Change Management.
Expected output of The Supply Chain Academy Seminar (1,5 days) with group 1:
At the end of the Seminar, Sales and Operations Management Teams are reaching a new dimension, as they are now sharing a common Supply Chain Strategy, and are ready to collaborate on the development of a Business Plan to achieve Business Performance.
They also understand the Basics of the Supply Chain Planning Processes and Organization (Demand & Supply) to implement (Sales & Operations Planning, Master Production Planning and Rough Cut Capacity Planning, MRP, Shop Floor Scheduling).
• Group 2: Senior Managers (Sales, Customer Service, Production, Purchasing, Planning, Procurement, Maintenance, Warehouse, QC/QA…)
• Group 3: Supervisors, Middle Management, Employees (Customer Service, Production, Purchasing, Planning, Procurement, Warehouse, QC/QA…) With group 2 and group 3, I am expecting to increase the practical knowledge of Supply Chain Planning techniques but also to generate in the different Departments of a Site a new Collaborative Mode to help Top Management deploying his Business Strategy.
Expected output of The Academy Education Program (2 days) with group 2 and 3:
At the end of the Training, the participants will understand the mechanisms of the S&OP, DRP, MPS, Rough Cut Capacity Planning and MRP.
They will indentify the main sources of Customer Service improvement and Working capital reduction:
- Rapid machine changeover (SMED,…)
- Higher Production frequency
- Smaller batch sizes
- Little Frozen Period
- Forecast accuracy
- Supplier certification
- ...
Historically the Fresh Connection Company, selling and manufacturing Fruit Juices, has always been highly profitable; but since a few months, Market conditions have changed and the company is now running its business with a negative Return On Investments.
The CEO of the Company has send clear messages to his Direct Reports in Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, Purchasing and Finance, saying that the situation couldn’t last longer and that necessary measures should be taken briefly in order to restore the profitability of the Business.
The participants of the Seminar are now taking the control of the Company on internet.
They have to be organized in groups of 4 or 5, each one playing the role of a member of the Management Board (Sales, Operations, Purchasing, Supply Chain, and eventually Finance).
The interest of having more than one group is that it is creating emulation and competition between teams that may adopt different strategies.
Each Group will go through successive rounds, during which they will have to take the right decisions to progressively improve the ROI.
Each run is representing a couple of months in the life of the Fresh Connection Company. (We are expecting to go through at least 5 runs to take the full benefits of the exercise.)
Basically, the situation the People will discover after analyzing the different KPI’S provided on the Web Site will be the following:
- 98,5% Customer Service Level promised by Sales Management isn’t reached and Products arrived on the market with a remaining shelf-life < 60%. Therefore, the Company has to pay high penalties to its customers.- Key Suppliers are not reliable which is generating interruption in Production or generating high Inventory to compensate uncertainty of deliveries.
- Planning and Production have agreed on 3 weeks frozen period and no scheduling changes are allowed within this time frame.
- Production is used to manufacture long series by campaigns and the Production Frequency for each SKU is once a month only.
- Capacity has been purposely saturated in Production and Warehouse.
After the first run, the participants should normally have understood that their interest is to work as a Team, first between Sales and Operations, and second within the Operations members.
At this stage they should all agree, before taking any Operational Decision, on the common Strategy to deploy to increase the ROI.
The role of the Instructor is to guide them into this Direction.
During the next runs, they will have to take joint actions like: - Negotiating Service Level, Shelf-life availability, Promotional pressure, Promotion horizon or Payment terms, with Customers,
- Certifying Suppliers,
- Investing in new Equipments,
- Subcontracting Warehouse,
- Increasing Production frequency,
- Decreasing Frozen Period,
- Adopting dual souring for strategic Products
- ...
Impact of decisions can be simulated on the Web Game before being agreed and saved.
At the end of each round, the “Fresh Connection” game is calculating the new ROI and offering to participants a series of KPI for them to eventually adjust their “shooting”.
Between two runs, the Instructor is debriefing the exercise and progressively introducing the different elements (Processes and Organization) of a Top Class Supply Chain.
For the ultimate part of the Seminar, the CEO or the Site Manager can conclude and announce how the lessons learned from the Business Game will be used concretely in the Organization to improve Business Performance.
Generally, the Supply Chain Academy Seminar is used by a CEO, a VP or a Site Manager as a “Forming, Storming, Norming” phase in a Classroom, before an expected “Performing” step, coming back to Business life.
More documentation is coming shortly about the Supply Chain Academy for Pharma. In the meantime you can contact me at ederyckel@aol.com.
Emmanuel de Ryckel
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