Stratégies logistiques pour les entreprises :23 experts partagent des conseils sur la façon de développer une stratégie logistique gagnante (ou d'améliorer la vôtre)

Ben Cubitt

Ben Cubitt currently serves as the Senior Vice President, Consulting &Engineering of Transplace, and has more than 20 years of industry and consulting experience in freight optimization. At Transplace he leads the engineering, carrier management and consulting teams. He has a deep familiarity with the freight procurement field working for consulting firms and multiple Fortune 500 companies in the consumer products, paper and automotive industries. Mr. Cubitt has led and assisted with bid projects for companies such as MeadWestvaco, Kellogg’s, RockTenn, The Home Depot, Colgate-Palmolive, RockTenn and McCormick Foods.

When it comes to logistics planning and strategies…

Within the supply chain, there is the constant challenge to optimize service and cost performance. There are more tools and challenges than ever before; but at the end of the day, for supply chain professionals, it’s all about delivering low cost and great service. To accomplish this, companies need to gain end-to-end visibility of their network and analyze service and cost performance. It starts with building a solid transaction and information foundation. Often this means partnering with a third party logistics provider (3PL) who has the people, processes and technology needed to execute, gain visibility, track and report cost and service performance.
Secondly, companies need to make sure they have the right people planning, executing and optimizing their transportation network. Do you have a team of transportation professionals with a mix of real world experience and solid academic and analytical skills? Are they trained in Lean or Six Sigma? Can they communicate? Communication is critical across the supply chain – to internal stakeholders, customers, suppliers, carrier partners or others in the industry – and managing those relationships.
Once you have a solid base of information, you need to analyze the data then optimize their freight. There are two levels of optimization:strategic and tactical. Strategic optimization looks at procurement processes, mode selection and overall network design. Tactical optimization is considering if you’re using right carriers, if deliveries and pickups on-time, etc. Shippers need to analyze cost of service daily to see where they’re having carrier performance or other service issues.
The next step is reporting and continuous improvement. You’ve built that solid foundation of data accuracy and visibility and have the right team in place and made changes to optimize your freight; then it’s time to report track and seek continuous improvement. By creating executive dashboards and actionable reports, quarterly business reviews, and continuous ad-hoc reporting it’s possible to examine trends over time and how you’re trending versus a prior period.
Gaining visibility and leveraging the data can help companies identify opportunities to take cost and inefficiency out of their supply chain. Logistics should to be a resource to the entire company and help the organization meet its strategic objectives and drive value for shareholders and customers.

Danny Yunes

Danny Yunes is the Manager of Supply Chain Strategy at Coyote Logistics. Coyote Logistics is a new third party transportation &logistics company built on a wealth of experience. Started in 2006 by a 22-year veteran of the industry, Coyote brings together the brightest, best trained employees and arms them with brand new technology that combines vast operational experience with the latest advances in optimization and applied probability sciences.

The most important tip I can share with logistics professionals…

Would be to always remember your core competency. Focus on it. Ingrain it into your culture. Then, align your logistics strategy around that competency, and segment out your products, customers, and vendors.
If your company is renowned for producing an industry-leading product, then focus on the innovation, quality and consistency that your customers expect. Your supply chain / logistics strategy should have a high-touch, value adding service component that keeps quality high.
If your product is commoditized and price is the only thing that differentiates you from your competitors, your supply chain / logistics strategy should focus on economies of scale and innovative ways to reduce waste.
Customers can then also be segmented by level of “importance” — focus on the ones that impact your business the most. These customers may or may not be the largest ones in your portfolio in terms of revenue. They may be middle of the pack customers who are collaborative and drive improvement in your business that can be replicated across other customers. Prioritizing these customers should be part of your logistics strategy.
Vendors can also be segmented by level of “importance” and again, it’s the collaborative ones — the ones that will work with you to improve your business and grow together — that you should include in your supply chain strategy.
Often times, start-up companies will try to differentiate themselves and win business by providing high levels of logistics service. If this is part of your strategy, then you know you have several options, from operating your own fleet to paying for premium service from an asset based or non-asset-based 3PL. This is why it is important to first understand your core competency. Are you a transportation company? Then yes, you should probably operate your own fleet. Do you make the best damn cupcakes in North America? Maybe you would consider outsourcing logistics…
Now, if you don’t want to be at the mercy of a logistics provider that treats you as the “little fish in a big pond,” one approach might be to seek a longer-term, contractually bound, collaborative relationship with a 3PL. By entrenching yourself into the 3PL’s business, a small or medium-sized start-up company encourages the logistics provider to invest in network development and build its capacity around the start-up company’s market. It’s the long-term commitment that builds stability for both the shipper and the carrier. With a strong collaborative relationship established, you can then work with the 3PL for additional value-adding and differentiating services down the road, such as custom software development, reporting and analytics, etc.

Richard J. Sherman

Rich is an author, speaker, and consultant on Supply Chain, Business, Leadership, and Information. He is an internationally recognized pundit and author on trends and issues across supply chain management. He currently serves as a Principal Essentialist at Trissential co-leading their supply chain consulting practice. His book “Supply Chain Transformation:Practical Roadmap for Best Practice Results” (Wiley, 2012) has received praise by practitioners, academics, and non-supply chain executives as a great read on business transformation. Throughout his career, Mr. Sherman has held senior management positions with visionary technology firms such as EXE, Syncra, and Numetrix, and marketing leading corporations such as Microsoft, Information Resources (IRI), Mercer Management Consulting, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), and Unisys.

One of my most important tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your logistics strategy is…

Begin and end with customers and how they use your offerings! Logistics is about optimizing costs while providing outstanding service. And, not all customers are created equal! A segmented logistics strategy that considers the requirements of your most valuable customers first and designed accordingly wins! Business is about growing exceptional current results while building a strong base for the long term. Logistics is the capability that can orchestrate all of that to happen, by starting with an intimate understanding of product and service needs of every customer segment and linking them to the steps that provide breakthrough satisfaction to customers. Logistics is the external link between suppliers, production, customer interface, and results. It is the internal link between product development, marketing, sales, procurement, production, finance, and executive leadership. An effective logistics strategy will contribute to the financial health of the company and fuel its growth. When it starts with customer segment needs and expectations and understands the value you create for the customer, only then can it produce exhilarating customer response through delivery of knockout value.

Naseem Malik

Naseem Malik is Managing Partner of MRA Global Sourcing, an affiliate of MRINetwork, one of the largest executive recruitment organizations in the world. Naseem brings over 15 years of experience in the supply management and logistics function to the search and recruitment business. Spanning diverse industries, he has worked in numerous roles of increasing responsibility, including implementation of global supply strategies, product and process cost reductions, logistics and transportation management and supply chain improvements. He was also Director of Global Sourcing at both Terex Corporation and ACCO Brands, and his background includes working in management consulting for AT Kearney, as well as multiple start-up businesses.

The truth about logistics strategy is that…

An effective logistics strategy at its core, is nothing more than the process of moving and positioning inventory to meet customer requirements at the lowest possible total cost to serve. For a business leader, it’s their responsibility to design and administer a system to control the flow and positioning of materials to support the business strategy. Every firm should adopt a strategic initiative to align suppliers and distributors into collaborative relationships to gain a competitive advantage. When this synchronization takes place, it’s called an integrated logistics model. There are a few key factors that comprise a successful integrated logistics model and they are:asset minimization, lowest total cost, and supply chain connectivity.
Since the business of logistics has become big business in the U.S., it’s also important to have a solid logistics structure in place. Critical components of a logistics structure that an organization should encompass are as follows:facility network, warehousing and material handling packaging, order management, transportation and inventory.
All of these things have one goal and that is to ensure customer success. No longer will excellent service and customer satisfaction lead to loyalty. For companies to now be competitive and successful, they will have to evolve their philosophy towards ensuring customer success. They will have to ask:“How can I enhance my customers’ performance?” This entails understanding customer requirements, processes and their total costs.
A successful logistics strategy will be a customer focused strategy. This will allow for a stronger franchise with best customers and lower logistics costs. It should also result in higher inventory turns and reduced expediting because you will be in a true partnership and not a tactical relationship with your customer base. The logistics value proposition for any company will focus on configuring in a customer relevant way while concurrently enhancing quality, productivity and operational excellence. Any successful strategy cannot remain static. Business leaders need to stay atop of technology and trends as they impact and change the scope of business faster than ever before.

Douglas Holdsworth

Doug is currently the Manager of Operations at Quality Freight Logistics, Inc, a transportation company based in Michigan. Prior to helping found and mange Quality Freight Logistics, Doug helped launch and grow logistics firm, R2 Logistics, over the course of six years. He has more than 12 years of management and customer service experience in the Logistics industry.

When it comes to logistics strategy success, the most important tip I can share is…

Employ an experienced transportation procurement specialist to vet and manage your vendors “in house”. Within these vendors, you want to work with a combination of asset based companies and at least 2 third-party logistics companies (3pl’s). 3pl companies have access to all modes of transportation throughout the entire market, and will be able to adapt to changes in the market throughout the year. Also, working with more than one of these companies will keep them in competition with one another and will usually net you the lowest price for their services.

Nick Martyn

Nick is the CEO and Founder of RiskLogik. Before founding RiskLogik in 2010, CEO Nick Martyn held various command and staff appointments in both the Canadian and British Armies over 27 years of military service in Canada, UK, Germany, Former Republic of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. From 2008 to 2011, he served as CEO of the Afghanistan Information Management Services (AIMS) where he oversaw the transition of AIMS from the United Nations to independent NGO status and transformed the organization taking them from a negative cash position to a peak of USD $9M revenue in 24 months. During that period AIMS delivered a world class international aid effectiveness management system (ANDMIS) to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan while also modernizing the Land Management System and Mapping the Electrical Service in Kabul.

If I had one fundamental piece of logistics management advice for a company, it would be to…

Conduct a complete risk and resilience assessment prior to establishing a new supply chain. Unfortunately, resilience does not come in a box, and cannot be purchased just when you need it. While designing and building a resilient supply chain from the very beginning is much more cost-effective than trying to change the supply chain in mid-stream, many organizations must redesign them as they live with the results of one or more disasters or shocks.
A resilient supply chain is one that is flexible in the face of disruptive events. For example, an inbound supply chain that uses Just-In-Time delivery of parts is lean and cost-effective in the short term, but may be easily disrupted by events beyond the control of its managers. Resilience means having the flexibility of being able to choose from multiple suppliers, several backup modes of transport, or keeping 24-48 hours of parts on hand to smooth out the parts flow during disruptive events. This type of built-in resilience can give operational managers the time to react should the event prove to be a longer-term disruption.
Although logistics systems are called supply chains, they are not linear chains as the name suggests. Rather, supply chains are very often complex webs or networks of infrastructure, suppliers, supplies and services. Managers can’t use linear thinking when determining the weaknesses and risks in a complex system. Therefore, using systems thinking to map and quantify the movement of goods and services, and the dependencies between the parts of the supply chain, is a much more effective way to identify risks in a modern logistics network. This map or model can then be used to demonstrate to company decision-makers where vulnerabilities exist, and by extension which parts of the network are at greatest risk.
Large firms with their own planning departments run scenarios to determine the most costly and the most vulnerable nodes in the network, and use the results of the scenarios to mitigate the risks ahead of time. Until now, smaller firms did not have that ability. However, new software tools are enabling small and medium-sized companies to run their own planning scenarios, and recover more quickly from known events.
Identifying vulnerabilities and mitigating the supply chain risks ahead of time is critical to your survival when the disruptive event hits. This extra time can mean the difference between collapse and the ability to save money, recover faster and with less impact on the business and, most importantly, its customers.
A resilient supply chain is the product of thorough analysis and careful planning. Tomorrow`s resilience is the product of the smart decisions made today. Risk discovery, risk analysis and risk mitigation are complex and potentially costly. Our company, RiskLogik, provides the skilled professionals, proven techniques and leading edge tools to help your company build resilience quickly and cost effectively. RiskLogik’s software is being used by the Government of Ontario to analyze and plan for critical infrastructure risk events, and also by the Government of New Brunswick to map supply chain risks and vulnerabilities within the province. RiskLogik software and methodology has also been used to support program management in Afghanistan, security risks for NATO and the Canadian Forces, and critical infrastructure risk for the Government of Canada.

Patrick Burnson

@SCMR
Patrick Burnson is the executive editor of Logistics Management, which provides editorial coverage for executives, managers, and other professionals in the field of logistics and supply chain management. Patrick also is the executive editor of Supply Chain Management Review. A widely published writer and editor, Patrick has spent the bulk of his career covering international trade, global logistics, and supply chain management.
NOTE:The following information is excerpted from Strategic Transportation Sourcing:5 Tips to Improve Your Position via Logistics Management.
“Today, freight transportation management is more than just about price. But how do shippers put together a transportation and supplier sourcing strategy that will…”
Earn them the capacity that they need at a price that works for all parties involved?
Tip:Consider Big Data
When asked to identify the trend with the greatest potential impact on the way procurement does it job over the next decade, the majority of the Hackett Group study participants chose predictive analytics or forecasting.
Analysts observe that as procurement’s role matures in transportation management from transactional facilitator to trusted business advisor, proficiency with the next generation of analytics—Big Data—will be a key enabler. Big Data may also add significant value when it comes to customer analytics, bringing more agility to model massive volumes of structured and unstructured data from multiple sources.
However, Donna Wilcek, vice president of product marketing for Coupa, a cloud-based spend management software company, notes that this information overload can be overwhelming. “Everyone from the CFO on down the command in the supply chain should have access to this transparency, so that risk is mitigated and costs are contained,” she says.
In fact, Coupa’s recent whitepaper, “Understanding the Sourcing Organization Maturity Model,” posits that “immature” models may not have much of a process for project planning at all—since sourcing projects are handled on an ad hoc basis.
“As sourcing organizations move up the maturity ladder, projects are managed centrally but still may not be planned upfront,” says Andy Chiang, director of product management at Coupa. Further up the ladder, he adds, transportation sourcing projects are often strategically planned out and results are reported to the CEO.

Rayford Collins

@UPS
Rayford Collins, former supply chain optimization expert with UPS Customer Solutions and current UPS director of global solutions, provides management leadership to a team that delivers engineering, technology, and sustainability solutions to a customer base of established global organizations. Rayford takes a consultative approach with some of the largest high tech and telecom companies around the world and helps them meet objectives in improved customer service, efficiency gains, increased market penetration, and revenue growth. Rayford also focuses on managing customer solutions inclusive of supply chain deign, business process re-engineering, and technology solutions.
NOTE:The following information is excerpted from 10 Small (But Significant) Ways to Improve Your Supply Chain Right Now via UPS Compass.
“There’s no doubt that supply chain and logistics issues are critical to any company’s success. But dramatic improvements don’t always involve…”
Large-scale strategic overhauls or process changes that require months to implement.
Small parcel carriers can often provide a cost savings on multi-piece shipments that don’t involve a full pallet or multiple pallets. Look at small parcel vs. LTL carrier or LTL vs. truckloads to understand the price differentials for various weight and zone break points. Changing the routing or mode of shipments can pay off, especially for midmarket shippers.
Make sure your A and B movers are properly located to allow for minimum processing time and distance to the outbound shipping lanes. Place those fast movers carefully. If they are all in the same aisle or location, you can create a bottleneck as employees run into each other doing the pick.
Companies shipping from more than one location would want A &B movers in each, but D movers in just one, to keep inventory carrying costs down. If you decide you need to have 100 D movers, put them where the warehouse space and labor costs are lowest. That can reduce your inbound shipping cost, too.

Lora Cecere

@lcecere
@SCInsightsLLC
Lora Cecere is the founder of Supply Chain Insights and author of Supply Chain Shaman. She travels the world to track the course of supply chain practices and disruptive technologies. Lora’s writing and work focus on the use of enterprise applications to drive supply chain excellence. As the Supply Chain Shaman, Lora interprets and connects the evolving supply chain world to those in the industry who follow her work.
NOTE:The following information is excerpted from Executing Customer-Centric Supply Chain Strategies via Supply Chain Brief.
“I am on a mission. My goal? I want to understand why some companies outperform on the Supply Chain Metrics That Matter while others do not…”
About twice a month companies ask me to review their strategy documents. Frequently I see the goal of “build a customer-centric strategy” or “define an end-to-end vision to deliver on the customer promise.” However, when I probe and ask companies to explain what this means, I get either a pregnant pause or a blank stare. Many will say “Isn’t it obvious?” I shake my head and answer, “No. It requires a careful execution of strategy and the connection of strategy to execution.” All too often supply chain leaders are good at high-level vision, but weak at connecting the vision to execution. It requires big wings and big feet. (Big wings represent the ideation and creation of the strategy, and the big feet represents the execution. The Customer-Centric Supply Chain Strategy needs both.)
… the companies that are the most customer-centric have ten characteristics:

1. Clarity of purpose for the buyer
2. Take ownership of the channel:drive reliability and excitement
3. Build segmented customer strategies:tie strategy to policy/execution
4. Cost-to-serve with data-driven discussions
5. The supply chain has a clear focus on outcomes
6. Alignment between operations and commercial teams
7. Build outside-in processes
8. Hands-free and reliable order processes
9. Cross-functional listening
10. Execute at the moments of truth

Eric Meister

@myblujay
Eric Mesister, former COO of LeanLogistics (now Blu Jay Solutions) and Local Orbit, is a pragmatic and results-oriented supply chain and technology executive with proven success in increasing enterprise value through implementing operational excellence, creative and innovative solution development, and creating long-term sustainable, collaborative relationships with team members, customers, and partners. Eric also focuses on the customer while serving as a commercial leader with consistent top and bottom line growth in expanding and contracting markets all the while improving customer and employee satisfaction.
NOTE:The following information is excerpted from Defining and Implementing an Effective Transportation Strategy via Talking Logistics.
“What we find is that the better aligned your strategies are – from supply chain to transportation to carrier strategies – and the better aligned they are with execution, the better able and more effective you are at…”
Managing both cost and service at the same time. Being able to benchmark allows you to identify your supply chain performance and the positioning of your supply chain within the business – both critical factors in determining what kind of shipper you are.
[The key to enabling alignment and synchronization across a broader supply chain strategy is] the people, process, and technology that allow you to hook everything together and make sure there’s alignment over time. Processes and technologies that are designed to provide transparency, visibility, and data are critical to ensuring an alignment between the various levels of strategy. We talk about a waterfall from the carrier to the supply chain strategy to the transportation strategy to the carrier strategy and then to the execution. There’s also a feedback loop forward that allows you to understand whether your strategies are aligned, and what impact changes have on your overall performance. An example would be, what is your carrier performance telling you about your supply chain strategy? If you have a significant change in your on-time or cost performance, what is that telling you about your supply chain strategy? Having that feedback loop ensures alignment.

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