Foster a Culture of Innovation in the Supply Chain

“Culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, anytime.” This was the first sentence that the professor of marketing and strategy uttered during our first MBA class at Georgia Tech. He underlined his point with the story of how Kellogg’s tried to conquer the Indian market with its breakfast cereal.

The company was trying to sell corn flakes with cold milk as breakfast in the Indian market, a culture that eats a warm breakfast finished with a hot, thick, creamy, flavorful coffee (A quick digression here:  one of the most popular coffees in India is made from the freshest milk, gotten from “only grass” fed cows just minutes before). India already had popular and well-loved breakfast foods: the idli, a fermented and steamed rice cake with probiotic that makes digestion easier and is called “the most healthiest food ever” with double superlatives; and the dosa, a fermented rice crepe. The corn flake with cold milk did not take off as Kellogg’s expected because that product did not fit within the culture, especially among the South Indians.

(Source: Pixabay)

This was a failed attempt at innovation. Which brings me to the question of today: How can one encourage innovation in the supply chain? Innovation tends to be considered a bad word in the supply chain space, because the supply function generally focuses on risk mitigation. The supply chain culture can be compared to the Asian culture or perhaps the military, which has a focus on conformity, simplicity, working together and taking orders through a chain of command. It’s not so much about standing out, but all about blending in. There is a laser focus on delivering merchandise in a mission critical fashion.

New ideas are often considered risky and non-conforming. Above all, nobody wants to lose his or her job. Also, a good number of folks in the supply chain leadership roles have a military background. When I worked for Hewlett Packard, many of the project managers and program managers came from the armed services. They were all hired for their leadership skills, but that came with this risk mitigating culture as well.

Knowing all this, it is really important to take extra steps to encourage and foster a culture of innovation. Innovation involves calculated risk taking, the ability to establish an effective process to learn from the mistakes, and an emphasis away from fear of failure and toward maximizing lessons learned.

Last month, I was at a prospect’s site and they wanted to thoroughly test our product as part of the technology selection process. They tested it in two facilities, using it for a couple of days in each. Basically, we deployed our product in all departments and tested thoroughly for all functions. The folks from the second facility did a much more thorough job and also had some very impressive innovations in their distribution center. These innovations were not necessarily in processes or products, but rather in the discipline, rigor, and daily habits, as well as within the overall culture of operations.

Where I live, we see green signboards on the highway that say this portion of the road is being taken care of by a certain organization, or sometimes even by an individual. Even in the Great Smoky Mountains, there are portions of the road that individuals can volunteer to maintain as part of the “Adopt a Trail” program and make a difference in the community.  The folks at the second data center took this great idea and adapted it.

Photo courtesy: Daniel Case at the English language Wikipedia

Every aisle had a picture of the associate with a sentence that said, “This aisle is maintained with pride by ” and then the name of the associate. The program ensures every aisle is kept clean, without overstock items left on the floor. Every aisle has an owner who is accountable. This is a simple idea is one that can be replicated in any DC without a large investment. Above all, it fosters a great sense of ownership in the associates and inculcated a great culture by leveraging pride and creating an enthusiasm that is contagious. This is the kind of innovation that changes the culture and fosters innovation in the cultural DNA of the organization. Executive management can also encourage innovation. At one of our customers, for example, the senior vice president owns a patent for an innovative case used in their products. That sets the tone for the entire organization, starting from the top down.  In addition, small innovations can make a big difference. I have also seen some really simple but specialized tools that make things better. For example, one company gave workers a small L-shaped tool to cut corrugated boxes, so the height of the box could be changed quickly and the box used for a different purpose. This simple change saved worker time, reduced waste, and encouraged re-use of boxes, which cut costs. Organizations can approach innovation in two ways:
  1. By solving a specific problem that everyone is experiencing (i.e. fixing the existing mousetrap), or
  2. By making processes and products better (i.e. building a better mousetrap)
Within an organization, it is much easier to build momentum and acceptance for the first type of innovation. The second type required a lot more articulation of value proposition, better return on investment (ROI), and well-considered timing. To make it worthwhile, you need to create seven to 10 times more value on average to get traction with it. In short, it’s sometimes better to look for ways to make the mousetrap you have better. Tell us about the challenges you’ve encountered while trying to innovate within your supply chain or in your distribution center.  How did you overcome them? Does your organization encourage innovation? What steps have you taken to foster a culture of innovation? Let us know in the comments section below…and good luck innovating! Originally published at Smartgladiator.com on Feb 28, 2018.
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Aug 2018
By Puga SankaraComments Off on Foster a Culture of Innovation in the Supply Chain
Author:
Puga Sankara
About:
Puga Sankara is the Founder, CEO of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. So far, Smart Gladiator LoadProof has been used to ship, receive, and scan more than 100 million boxes. SG LoadProof is a patent pending Centralized Enterprise Photo/Video Document System on Cloud for Supply Chain. SG LP is built on the fact that photos & videos are vital docs as important as POs/SOs/Legal Contracts/Fulfillment Orders that reside in ERP/WMS/TMS systems, that serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal proof of crucial, critical, vital operations executed in Supply Chain within/across orgs when fulfilling customer orders as well as meeting contractual obligations between orgs as merchandise is transferred between different parties that partake in Supply Chain functions & operations. And these photos/videos data should not be stored in someone’s Smartphone or Email Inbox or in their personal/work Computer, but should be stored in a Centralized Enterprise system, where such data can be pushed into super-fast, stored securely, accessible to all stake holders (CFO/Sales Reps/Customer Support/AR/AP) in an org, as well as facilitates super-fast retrieval/sharing. LP is an Enterprise System of record for Photo/Video docs & is as important as an ERP which is an enterprise system of record for POs, SOs, Legal Contracts between parties etc. that have huge legal ramifications, also as important as a WMS (Warehouse Management System) that hold indispensable shipment & fulfillment data on orders. Like how Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. have evolved into social media platforms/systems that enable individuals to showcase their beauty/pretty clothes/lovely cosmetics/hep coolness etc., LoadProof is an Enterprise system that holds similar photos/videos, but for a different reason, not for show off, but to serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal & indisputable system of record and proof that can be presented even in the court of law, when there is a dispute between parties while they execute many facets of the Supply Chain functions & operations. SG LoadProof is also an Enterprise System of Record for Photos, videos and any other digital documents for your Supply Chain Network. A system of record (SOR) or source system of record (SSoR) is a data management term for an information storage system (commonly implemented on a computer system running a database management system) that is the authoritative data source for a given data element or piece of information. The need to identify systems of record can become acute in organizations where management information systems have been built by taking output data from multiple source systems, re-processing this data, and then re-presenting the result for new business use. In these cases, multiple information systems may disagree about the same piece of information. These disagreements may stem from semantic differences, differences in opinion, use of different sources, and differences in the timing of the extract, transform, and load processes that create the data they report against, or may simply be the result of bugs. The integrity and validity of any data set is open to question when there is no traceable connection to a good source, such as a known System of Record. Where the integrity of the data is vital, if there is an agreed system of record, the data element must either be linked to, or extracted directly from it. In other cases, the provenance and estimated data quality should be documented. The “system of record” approach is a good fit for environments where both: 1. there is a single authority over all data consumers, and 2. all consumers have similar needs Here, LoadProof is the System of Record for pictures and videos for all the entities in Supply chain who uses pictures and videos to track using any Supply Chain System infrastructure. 1. LoadProof provides accurate, thorough, complete, and latest information in pictures and videos related to any entity in the Supply chain that is tracked. 2. LoadProof is the single authority on pictures and videos related to any entity in the Supply Chain that is tracked 3. LoadProof doesn’t let any external system to copy the records being stored in it, which eliminates the data being duplicated in multiple places to preserve the data integrity and credibility. 4. LoadProof has a secured login procedure which lets only users with select level access to view the data and modify the records which helps in maintaining LoadProof is becoming the Industry Standard System for Photo & Video Docs for Supply Chain Smart Gladiator is located in ATDC - Advanced Tech Dev Center (tech Incubator) in Georgia Institute of Tech. Click for a demo - https://loadproof.com/apply Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 25 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. Size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 1.2 million SQFT. Puga Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at puga@smartgladiator.com or visit the company at www.smartgladiator.com. Also follow him at www.pugasankara.com. [Read More]
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