Recently, a number of events have taken place that
came as a surprise to many people. Think of Brexit, or the new president of the
United States. Many people say they did not expect things to turn out this
far things would go. A small number of people claim they did see this coming, but hindsight is, of course, much easier.
You might be thinking that I’m taking a political turn with my
blog. I can hear you thinking, ‘He used to write about logistics’. Well, I
really just want to write about logistics, but it’s interesting to
discover parallels between politics and logistics.
In logistics, surprises do crop up from time to time, and they’re usually
this is unwelcome. Whilst finance professionals might react enthusiastically to
, for example, a sudden 20 per cent rise in turnover, in logistics
already mean that considerable juggling is required to make such an increase
possible.
What has been lacking in politics is listening to
the groups of people who really matter. In the case of elections, these are
voters. Even when signals were picked up, the assumption was that
it wouldn’t be such a big deal and that everything would just carry on as before.
I see that attitude (all too) often in the logistics sector as well. ‘If we just
carry on as we normally do here, everything will be fine’, is the
thinking. But when that peak in demand hits, it can lead to unpleasant surprises
and ultimately to poor service or, worse still, dissatisfied
customers.
A failure to listen or communicate is a common occurrence in logistics
settings
. I know of many examples of initiatives
initiated by a Marketing or Sales department, without this
being adequately communicated. It is only when demand for a particular item (or
particular product group) starts to rise sharply does it become apparent that a promotion is underway. In such a
case, a great deal of trouble could have been avoided simply by
coordinate with one another.
Polls
It was striking that, in both the Brexit referendum and the
US presidential elections, the opinion polls
failed to predict the final outcome at all. In logistics, this is
comparable to market research or forecasts that significantly
reality. This raises the question of whether, in logistics, one should
bother (and spend money) on making forecasts if they are highly
unreliable.
It is often smarter and more efficient to organise the business in such a way
so that it can respond quickly to ‘unexpected’ events.
Various techniques and methods support a flexible
operational approach that can react swiftly to changes in market conditions,
volume fluctuations or other surprises – which, if we are prepared to
, should not really be called surprises at all.
No surprise
When (volume) fluctuations are no longer a surprise, because the
organisation is so flexible that both upward and downward deviations can
be accommodated, then we have things under control.
That’s a reassuring feeling, because surprises can be fun,
but surprises in logistics are usually a nuisance and can cost a lot of money
.
Frits de Wind – logistics consultant
Image: Image: Flickr cc: Judith Klein
