Nurse Navigators and patient service supply chains

Posted on August 21, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (August 16, 2011) describes the role of a nurse navigator to assist patients from start of the diagnosis through completion of treatment. The nurse navigator starts with the patient right from initial diagnosis (in one of the examples presented – breast cancer) to surgery scheduling that synchronized with the patient’s availability, to follow up surgery, to treatment choices, advice on follow up and support through the entire process.  Such customer service managers, while common in other manufacturing contexts, seem to permit improved customer satisfaction in a decentralize health care supply chain.  Given that the service provided by the nurse navigator is an externality that benefits the entire supply chain, who should pay for such services ? Will the nurse navigator evolve like concierge services offered by hotels, and thus permit overall health care service satisfaction based on willingness to pay ?  Should Federal programs start to cover the cost of the nurse navigator, and if so, how would such services generate cost efficiencies ?

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Mosquito Net distribution in Africa

Posted on August 21, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times review of a book “Lifeblood” by Alex Perry describes the role of Ray Chambers, an industry CEO, in coordinating the distribution of mosquito nets, 300 million to date, in Africa. It describes how disorganized efforts and complacency had caused malaria to be a serious disease killing millions in Africa.  Coordinating money, distribution and accounting for flows set the effort in its path to complete eradication of malaria by 2015. Can private sector strategies cause significant efficiencies and impact in the global health arena ? Is the increase in private funding for global health ($ 10 billion more than the US government) suggest less local control of health care needs or less regulation and thus increased efficiency ? How will sustainability of such aid be ensured ?

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Triclosan antibacterial worries and supply chain impact

Posted on August 21, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times artcile (August 20, 2011) describes an FDA investigation of triclosan – an antibacterial ingredient used in hand soaps, toothpaste and kitchen cutting boards. The FDA and EPA are investigating whether the chemical is safe – now that 75 % of Americans over the age of five have it in their urine. Animal studies suggest that the chemical may alter hormone regulation or cause antibiotic resistance.  But the prevalence of the chemical across many household products suggests the widespread supply chain impact of a ban on the product. If they decide the ingredient is unacceptable, should the FDA just ban manufacturing ? Should sales be banned – thus requiring large amounts of inventory to be destroyed across the supply chain ? Should the bans be staggered across products to enable the industry to adjust by substituting triclosan with other acceptable ingredients ?

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Struggling with recovery from the Tsunami – Honda vs the rest

Posted on August 18, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (August 17, 2011) describes differences in the recovery from the tsunami across Nisaan, Toyota and Honda. While Nissan has 54 days of inventory in stock, Toyota has 34 days and Honda 18 days of supply.  The article suggests that Nissan built vehicles it could from its inventory of parts rather than vehicles customers were ordering.  In a presentation in Beijing, Professor Hirofumi Matsuo claimed that Toyota proactively worked with suppliers to ramp up microcontroller production to get back to normal faster.  Will the strategies to recover from the tsunami cause long term market shifts or just short term jitters ? Nissan’s more standard programmble chips enabled supplier flexibility and thus a permitted Nissan faster recovery – does that suggest that reconfigurable designs and thus supplier availability flexibility is a superior proditable strategy ?

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Greenpeace’s Dirty Laundry report and Puma’s Commitment

Posted on August 18, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Greenpeace report ‘Dirty Laundry” (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Dirty-Laundry/) describes results from water samples from the Yangtze and the Pearl river deltas. Their analysis suggests significant levels of chemical contamination that are potentially hazardous and can impact fish populations too.  The report urges brand manufacturers who source clothing from suppliers in the region to commit to a “zero discharge” of chemicals across their supply chain.  A recent report in Sustainable Brands Weekly describes Puma’s plan to zero discharge of all hazardous chemicals across their supply chain by 2020. Is the brand manufacturer responsible for monitoring all actions of suppliers along their global supply chain regardless of tier ?  Should the supplier’s responsibility remain complying with local regulations or regulations set by the brand, given their need to generate competitive bids ? How should certification of “zero discharge” be monitored for global corporations – should this be done by private auditors or by a UN like entity ?

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“Amazon Law” and supply chain impact

Posted on August 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (August 3, 2011) estimates that being required to collect sales tax would reduce Amazon.com’s sales by 1.4 % or about $ 650 million per year.   While operating without a brick-and-mortar store in all states, Amazon.com does own warehouses and do product development – state lawmakers, who estimate they loose about $ 11 billion in tax revenues collectively, are trying to change the definition fo what consitutes operating in a state.  Should ecommerce merchants that do product development in a state be subject to state taxes ? Amazon.com is claimed to avoid emails sent from locations in states considering such laws – does the impact on efficiency for Amazon worth avoiding the these taxes and its impact on demand ?

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Expand Capacity or shrink – a decision for Bremen Castings

Posted on August 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (August 10, 2011) describes the choice made by Bremen Castings, a foundry in Indiana with $ 47.5 million in sales, that was choosing whether or not to undertake the largest capital project in their history by spending $ 5 million – the next phase of a $ 10 million expansion.  The dilemma was whether to draw conclusions about their demand by looking at the stock market.  In the end, a detailed look at the order stream from their customers – in trucking and agriculture, and the potential orders from US manufacturers moving back to US sources to fill small orders, made them stick with their expansion plan.  Does the example of Bremen Castings suggest a potential disconnect between industrial growth and apparent financial volatility ? Are the long term sourcing shifts to US sources a fundamental source for capacity growth in manufacturing ? Can small US manufacturers focus on their inherent flexibility, skill level but high tech automation to compete  against the low cost but large minimum order level Chinese sources ?

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Ecommerce Robustness during economic downturn

Posted on August 15, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (August 14, 2011) describes the potential growth of ecommerce businesses (10 % in 2011 and 9 % in 2012) even as overall retail sales are expected to decrease. Increased selection, pooled inventory that can be sold across the globe, fullfillment efficiencies, and use of efficient entities (such as Amazon’s fulfillment) by small retailers – all all listed as the driver of this growth.  Will the potential efficiencies afforded by ecommerce herald a significant push into that space by traditional retailers ? Will a crowded ecommerce space swing the pendulum back to old name retailers with brand recognition ? How will retailers distinguish the customer shopping experience in their e-space?

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Decreased US Federal government spending and private supply chain impact

Posted on August 9, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Wall Street Journal (August 9, 2011) describes the impact of decreases in spending by the federal government ($ 917 billion in cuts over 10 years) and the impact of the loss of their consistency in spending and reliability in contract execution.   From 97 % for Lockheed Martin to 27 % of volume for Dell , government contracts have a large impact.  Will the supply chain cost impact be larger than the magnitude of the demand impact due to a decrease in demand stability ? Will these demand changes result in a ripple effect across the supply chain ?  Will these changes have a disproportionate impact on domestic suppliers due to the need to satisfy “Buy American” policies for many government contracts ?

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‘Green deliveries” by Office Depot

Posted on August 8, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in Sustainable Life Media (http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/news_and_views/articles/office-depot-rolls-out-greener-deliveries?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=brandsweekly&utm_campaign=august8) describes Office Depot’s delivery option to customers – receive supplies in paper bags with over 40 % recycled content – transported in plastic reusable totes with 60 % recycled plastic.  The goal is to replace 5 million boxes with bags in one year, thus saving about 20,000 trees.  Is this approach to reducing waste – by customizing delivery processes to shipper choices – an optimal way to reduce the environmental footprint of supply chains ? Given the need to manage plastic tote flows – will there be a potential impact on routing efficiency that should be accounted for ? If the packaging choice impacts product integrity, does the customer accept the associated liability, or should Office depot be required to guarantee that packaging choice does not affect product quality ?

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