Imagine you’re dropped into the middle of a supply chain with no direction and you have to figure out where to start. This can be overwhelming, but I would recommend to start with the flow of a single product. From supplier to customer, understand all of the various processes along the way. For example, let’s say we start with your run of the mill procurement process. You would order a product from a supplier, the product would ship to you, and then you would deliver the product to the customer. Start simple to understand each process along the way. This will help you understand each individual facet of the supply chain before moving onto more complicated topics.
A mistake people make here is trying to memorize words and their meanings without applying them to real life scenarios. Lead time, inventory turnover, and stockout are all meaningless words if you don’t understand their implications to the flow of the supply chain. Instead of just reading, pause and think about what the impact of lead time would be if it were to arrive late. Would this cause stockouts? Increase your cost? Just making a conscious effort to do this will greatly improve your understanding of the supply chain.
To put this into action, I would give yourself a short daily session to trace the flow of one logistics scenario. The first few minutes would be deciding what product flow you want to trace. Using the previous example, you could use the example of moving items from a supplier in one region to a warehouse in another. Then you would spend time thinking about and drawing out the individual processes involved. Don’t worry too much about getting the processes perfect at this point, just focus on getting the general flow of the supply chain. The last part of the session would be asking yourself questions about the flow of the supply chain. Identify possible constraints, how you could reduce lead time, etc. End the session by thinking about what parts of the scenario didn’t make sense to you, and try to attack those first in the next session.
You will start to notice improvement as you begin to manipulate scenarios. Take the example you used today and manipulate one variable. Say we are still using the example of moving items from a supplier in one region to a warehouse in another. Determine what would happen to the flow of the supply chain if we were to change from shipping by boat to shipping by air. What parts of the flow would be affected? How would this impact our cost? Simply manipulating scenarios will help you understand the impact of changing variables on the flow of the supply chain. As you continue to do this, you will begin to see patterns emerge, and you will be able to make decisions in the supply chain with more confidence.
If you find yourself getting hung up on a topic, I would recommend that you reduce the scope of what you are trying to accomplish. If you are having trouble tracing the flow of an entire supply chain, maybe focus on the flow of one specific part of the chain. For example, say you are having trouble understanding the flow of an entire supply chain. Narrow your scope to just focus on the flow of products into and out of a distribution center. What happens when a shipment arrives? How is inventory managed? If you reduce the scope of what you are trying to accomplish, it should make the problem much more manageable.
The key here is consistency. It is more important to dedicate a short, focused session daily to this than trying to carve out a few hours a week. You will notice improvement much more quickly if you dedicate a short amount of time each day. This isn’t something where you will need to spend a ton of time. Your goal isn’t to understand every topic possible as quickly as you can. Your goal is simply to be able to trace the flow of a product through the supply chain, identify constraints, and ask questions. With time, you will continue to grow your knowledge of the supply chain and will begin to see it less as a bunch of moving parts and more as an organized system.