Logistics & Supply Chain Management, 5th Edition

6

Creating the responsive supply chain

• Using the volume/variability matrix
• Product ‘push’ versus demand ‘pull’
• The Japanese philosophy
• The agile supply chain
• The foundations of agility
• A routemap to responsiveness

One of the biggest challenges facing organisations today is the need to respond to ever increasing levels of volatility in demand. For a variety of reasons product and technology life cycles are shortening, competitive pressures force more frequent product changes and consumers demand greater variety than ever before.

To meet this challenge the organisation needs to focus its efforts upon achieving greater agility such that it can respond in shorter time-frames both in terms of volume change and variety change. In other words ...