2006
New England Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition

Managing Product Diversity: How Recognizing the Unique Characteristics of Your Products Can Yield a Leaner Supply Chain

by Todd O. Burger and Jeff Wickham

Not all products or SKUs are created equal, though they are often presumed to be so in designing services or allocating logistics costs. Each has its own distinct personality and needs during its life in your supply chain. Slow/fast, large/small; low value/high value; short lead time/long lead time different characteristics can be exploited in sourcing, transporting, manufacturing, warehousing, inventory management, returns handling, and more. Failure to recognize and account for these differences results in disproportionately high supply chain costs for some items. As a result, some products have low or negative individual profitability and hold back a company s overall profits. Join Todd Burger and Jeff Wickham as they identify areas where you can exploit unique characteristics to reduce costs and improve customer service. In particular, they will address why it is getting harder to account for such differences and what you can do about that. They will draw from examples from retail, service parts, catalog, utility, and other industries.

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