Improving Your Communication and Collaboration
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Communication and collaboration are key elements to Supply Chain. According to the article, Study Finds 10 Ways to Improve Supply Chain Collaboration, they say you need to "consider things other than size when selecting a partner for supply chain collaboration, looking also at value, common interests, shared strategies, infrastructure, and processes." By sharing the same values with another firm, business adventures and future partnerships will be successful and smooth sailing.
Not only looking at partnerships, you need to look at communication and collaboration within your own company. More specifically when focusing on the production in the company. When companies evaluate their performance they look at cost, quality, and time. One way to achieve the lowest cost, highest quality, and quickest time is through the LEAN Approach and the 5S Kaizen System.
The 5S Kaizen System is a top down philosophy focusing on continuous improvement in activities from the CEO to assembly line workers. Another plus in this system is that it eliminates waste by improving standardize activities and processes. To get into more of the elements of the 5S Kaizen System, it really focuses on communication and collaboration. So, what are the elements? Teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles, and improvement suggestions.
Without communication and collaboration you start to get into the Bullwhip Effect. Now, this is something a company needs to avoid. The Bullwhip Effect is caused by too frequent demand forecasting, order batching frequency, price fluctuations, and rationing. The Bullwhip Effect is the lack of communication between the customer and the supplier. A major solution to this problem is information sharing.
To bring it back to the article, number nine on the list is to "ensure successful communication, sharing any issues or obstacles encountered at any stage of the supply chain and working together to eliminate them." This just emphasizes the importance of communication and how it is important to run a successful business.
