Procurement Insights

The Greening of Procurement: How Social Consciousness is Re-Shaping Procurement Practices (White Paper)

April 15, 2008

What is the key to ESG success? Bridging the gap between sustainable capitalism and sustainable purchasing.

Posted in: Green Procurement, Procurement Trends, White Papers

Is Ford’s auto-xchange the “Real Deal?”

April 11, 2008

In an excerpt from my March 18, 2008 post titled Optimization Modeling and the Modern Supply Chain I made the following statement: “The key starting point is to recognize that the term supply chain is a misnomer in that it implies a sequential order of events (in the spirit of your question, a non-deterministic set of […]

Tagged: alice miles, auto-xchange, cascade process, central hub, centralized hub, ford, heuristic methodology, jim yost, metaprise, optimization modeling, supply chain

Posted in: Commentary, Procurement Trends

What is the Value in your Supply Chain? (A PI Q and A)

April 10, 2008

Member Question: What is the difference between Supply Chain and Value Chain? My Response: To begin, the reference to supply or “value” chain is a misnomer in that it implies a sequential architecture. This is a term that is on its way out as an organization’s supply “practice” is actually centered on the synchronization […]

Tagged: competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior, michael porter, porter, porter's theory, SCOR, sequential supply chain, supply chain, synchronized supply chain, value chain, value network

Posted in: Procurement Trends, Professional Development

Similarity Heuristics, Iterative Methodologies and the Emergence of the Modern Supply Chain

April 8, 2008

Some professions, such as software developers, regularly utilize the similarity heuristic. For software developers, the similarity heuristic is utilized when performing debugging tasks. A software bug exhibits a set of symptoms indicating the existence of a problem. In general, similar symptoms are caused by similar types of programming errors. By comparing these symptoms with those […]

Tagged: attributes, foss, iterative methodology, SaaS, similarity hueristics, single stream, strand commonality, successive approximation, supply chain, sustainable reference model, web 2.0, Web 3.0, web 4.0

Posted in: Procurement Trends

Anne Julia Cahoon (In Memoriam)

April 7, 2008

April 2, 1918 – March 26, 2008 http://rememberinganne.wordpress.com/

Posted in: Syndicated PI Ping

Is having a website a requirement in the RFQ & RFP process today?

April 6, 2008

Member Question: I have a question, for those actively participating in the RFQ & RFP process today. We had a client request we put up one page of his newly developed site, even though it was in the production phase and not close to finalization. He requested we upload one page, disconnect the links, and […]

Tagged: metaprise, RFP, rfq, rfq submission, RFx, web-based rfp, web-based rfq

Posted in: Syndicated PI Ping

Do you practice “Business @ The Speed of Thought?” Does your enterprise have a “Digital Nervous System?” If not, why?

April 5, 2008

What does "Business @ The Speed of Thought" really mean?

Tagged: agent-based modeling, ariba, bill gates, business at the speed of thought, digital nervous system, equation-based modeling, larry ellison, oracle, SAP, service oriented architecture, soa, web 2.0, web 4.0

Posted in: Commentary

Is There a Poor “Herbie” Anywhere in the Oracle SCM Area?

April 1, 2008

Member Question From the “Theory of Constraints” there is poor Herbie, the infamous bottleneck in the supply chain pipeline. For any of you who use the Oracle Supply Chain 11.5.9 (or above) platform, is there any built-in “Herbie” that you’ve noticed, or has it been custom code wrapped around vanilla, that effected you most? New […]

Tagged: ariba, eilyahu m. goldratt, five steps of focus, metaprise, object oriented programming, oracle scm, performance greys, poor herbie, project fusion, safe passage, SAP, sequential supply chain, soa, supply chain bottleneck, synchronized supply chain, the goal, theory of Constraints, toc

Posted in: Procurement Trends, Professional Development

KM Value Network (Ontario Knowledge Cluster) Launched

March 27, 2008

Introduction When organizations such as Boeing (http://kmblogs.com/public/blog/188133) refer to a complex adaptive network, what they are really discussing is using an agent-based model whereby the unique operating attributes of key stakeholders are first understood individually and then (through a collaborative effort) are linked collectively through establishing what they refer to as “flow paths.” This latter […]

Posted in: KM Value Network, News & Updates

Guest Post: Just Imagine—a Flawless Procurement Merger Integration! (Author: Glenda Leatherman)

March 27, 2008

Picture yourself as a procurement professional in a regulated industry (e.g., telecommunications). Your company is one of three major players in this industry that are about to merge. Your assignment—should you choose to accept it—is to bring the three procurement organizations together into one functioning organization within months of Merger Day 1. With thought and […]

Tagged: change management, glenda leatherman, glenda@tbggroup.net, industry regulated mergers, procurement merger integration, tbg group

Posted in: Guest Posting