SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY

E d w a r d H . F r a z e l l e , P h . D . RightChain™ none too happy. He said that he didn’t like his grade. I told him that I didn’t like his grade either, but that was his grade. He complained that I didn’t understand the complexity of his business. I agreed to redo the assessment. I flew back to Atlanta, re-ran the numbers, and computed the assessment grades. The overall grade was the same, C-. I flew back to San Jose, California and shared the result. The COO was just as upset, complaining again that I did not understand how complex his business was. I shared with him that I had worked with lots of clients, empathized with his complexity, but stood my ground with the assessment. He asked us and paid us to redo the assessment one more time. I flew back to Atlanta, redid the assessment, and the grade came out the same, a C-. The next thing I knew I was flying back to San Jose worrying and praying about how to explain the result to the COO. In what could either be described as an “Ah-Ha” or “Duh” moment it dawned on me…. Some supply chains are inherently more complex than others. Some have heaped complexity on top of their inherent complexity. Those are the underperformers. To help explain this phenomenon to the COO I created the Supply Chain Complexity Index™, a quantification of supply chain complexity. The index uses ten factors that contribute to the complexity of a supply chain (see Figure 17 below), | 27

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