Supply Chain Fundamental Rethinking

From a low of 20,000 in mid- February 2021 to 3,50,000 by April week 3.  Demand surge of Covid+ new cases is what Indian Healthcare Supply Chain is coping up with to keep its Patients get what they need. Demand Planning which is the trigger for the entire Supply side of the Supply Chain to organize itself to meet the market within its SLA's again has been found wanting in its (in)accuracy! And as it stands today in India, the Demand Planning accuracy seems to have been much lower than desired. A few key insights from the current stage of Covid-19 viewed from the lenses of Demand Planning, a. Never underestimate the importance of History - "This time its different" is a misnomer. Human history is of similar behaviours exhibited over multiple instances spread over different time periods. Historical data is a goldmine for Demand Planning. e.g. Relating this to Covid-19 - No time in the history of past 400 years of Pandemics (just 400 years as I did only study those 400 yea...

Supply Chain inherently have variations. Nothing that is of surprise or unknown to a Supply Chain practitioner. Huge amount of Supply Chain resources are committed to identify root causes of the variations with a primary objective to "dampen" the variations. I see a lot of Supply Chains professionals who dislike variations. They would like the make a detailed analysis to discover the root cause of the variation(s) leading to efforts of reducing the frequency as well as the amplitude of the variation(s). A Purchase person dislikes variations in Sales forecasts which lead to change in Procurement plans. Similarly a Production person dislikes variations in Supply Schedules. Above all the Sales person dislikes variations in Production or Logistics leading to consequences of customer relationship. Each of these links of the Supply Chain invest heavily to find ways of dampening the variations. Question really is - In an attempt to dampen variations, what has the Supply Ch...

'Demand Planning' has been in vogue for a while . Simply put its ancipating the probability of occurance of an event called 'Sales' led by an action by an entity called 'Customer'. Sometimes 'Consumer'. Supply Chains have gotten themselves equipped with all possible ammunition to meet the 'demand' in the most efficient way. Processes have been laid down to forecast, parameters for identification of variations are more than what humanly is identifiable and demand planning process is an obession for most of the stake holders in the organisation. Network Analysis and Decisions have been the core of Supply Chain Design which dominantly exists for aligning and synchronising the supply side with demand (read: what the customer may need). Inventory policies are laid down with identification of safety stocks and reorder levels. In the supply chains which are mutli organisations and geographies, 'technology' becomes the back bone of the planning...