What’s that “EOQ solution” (prescription) for sourcing, batching and inventory management? (4min)

I just created a review video of the celebrated Economic Order Quantity (EOQ). This video considers two key decisions in inventory management: how much and when to order? Starting from real data, we build a model to optimize the total cost, which is the sum of the setup (order + transport + receiving) cost and holding cost. The solution is the celebrated Economic Order Quantity. All in just 4min :). Please put any comments or questions in the YouTube comment section which I periodically check.

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What’s that “Newsvendor solution” for inventory and capacity planning?

While discussing strategic capacity planning in class this morning there was a request to review the celebrated #Newsvendor model for #inventory and #capacity planning. So I figured: let’s make this 6min video for everybody who wants to review this simple, yet powerful decision model 🙂 What do you think?

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What to do with excess clothes (updated)

An interesting story from Reuters. What should retailers do with all of the inventory they had for the spring season?

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What’s next for just-in-time?

The Financial Times has an interesting set of articles on how the ongoing pandemic impacts supply chains (Trade Secrets: Supply Chain Disruption). These hit on things like toilet paper, firms pivoting to new markets or switching from a business-to-business focus to serving retail customers. The one I want to highlight deals with how any fragility exposed by the pandemic will impact supply chain strategy going forward (Be wary of scapegoating ‘just-in-time’ supply chains, May 27) that links to a post that Gady wrote a few weeks ago.

Here is the gist of the article:

A lot of intellectual momentum is building behind the idea that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the foolishness of corporate executives in extending their supply chains without properly assessing the risks. Companies have been thinking of “just-in-time” when they need to be thinking about “just-in-case”. …

The reality is complex, and — a crucial point — differs with each industry. Some, like the car industry, have such sophisticated supply chains involving thousands of different components, some manufactured to extremely low tolerance, that diversifying into different suppliers is totally impractical through effort and cost. Sure, you will have a more resilient supply chain, but you’ll also go bust before the next pandemic arrives.

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Production planning for the holidays at Lego

This should not surprise you at all: Christmas is a big deal for Lego. According to the Financial Times, half of the company’s sales come in the month or so before the holiday (Lego makes push to avoid disappointments of Christmas past, Dec 22). But how do they gear up for that big peak in sales? Check out the video below:

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What happens when the World Series results in inventory no one needs?

The World Series starts tonight. While everyone in Chicago is focused on the prospect of the Cubs winning the Series, that is not a certainty. The one thing that is certain is that someone is going to lose – and that raises the prospect of a Cub or Chief Wahoo on t-shirt proclaiming that a team won something that they didn’t.

So what happens to t-shirts and other tchotchkes celebrating events that never happened? That was the topic of a recent Chicago Tribune story (Where do losing baseball teams’ postseason T-shirts end up?, October 18). The article itself is a little confused (it very much seems that a paragraph was dropped) but it does layout some options:

Last year, VF Licensed Sports Group required customers who wanted early access to merchandise celebrating a baseball team’s postseason run agree to ship any merchandise with a losing team’s 2015 MLB postseason clinch logos, images or graphics to international nonprofit World Vision. Customers had 24 hours following a loss to get in touch with World Vision to start the donation process, according to a 2015 agreement provided by a retailer. …

Another retailer was sent a revised agreement that replaced the donation requirement with a mandate to ship any items for losing teams back for destruction. …

Retailers who violate an agreement not to sell, advertise or promote the losing team’s merchandise agree to pay $100,000 per breach, according to the 2016 World Series preprinted merchandise agreement.

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The Cubs might win: A supply chain story for championship gear

For those who are not baseball fans, let me give you a quick update: The Chicago Cubs are really good this year. They won over 100 games in the regular season and have now jumped out to a 2 – 0 lead in their best-of-five series with the San Francisco Giants. FiveThirtyEight  has them as the favorite to win the World Series.

If all of that is news to you, you should also be told that the Cubs have, frankly, sucked for a long, long time. They haven’t won a pennant since 1945 and a World Series since 1908. There is even a short story (The Last Pennant Before Armageddon) tying the Cubs winning a pennant to the end of the world. (To answer the obvious question, the World Series is scheduled to start on October 25th. Barring rain delays, the last possible game would be on November 2nd. The US presidential election is on November 8th.)

So if the Cubs make it to the World Series, there will be a lot of excitement around here. If they actually win the Series, Cook County will likely shut down for a month. And that all raises a question: How many Cubs t-shirts can be sold?

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Zulily, delivery times, and operations strategy

About a year ago, we had a post on Zulily and how they managed their order fulfillment. It featured a nifty graphic from the Wall Street Journal showing just how much longer their delivery times were relative to other interet retailers. Now, the Journal has another story — with a spiffy updated graphic — discussing how their delivery times have gotten even worse (Zulily Nips Business Model in the Bud, Mar 23).

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Does selling over the web offer better margins than selling in stores?

So what should be more profitable for a retailer, selling from physical stores or selling over the web? That’s the question that a recent Wall Street Journal article considers (How the Web Drags on Some Retailers, Dec 1). At first glance, the answer seems straightforward. Web sellers don’t need to rent stores or have staff cooling their heels waiting for customers. However, the reality isn’t necessarily so clear,

While conventional wisdom holds that online sales should be more profitable, because websites don’t need the pricey real estate and labor necessary to maintain a store network, many retailers actually earn less or even lose money online after factoring in the cost of shipping, handling and higher rates of returns.

For retailers that outsource their Web and fulfillment operations, costs can run as high as 25% of sales, industry analysts said.

Kohl’s Corp. says its profitability online is less than half what it reaps in its store. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it expects to lose money online at least through early 2016 as it invests to build its technology, infrastructure and fulfillment networks. Target Corp. says its margins will shrink as its online sales grow. Best Buy Co. said faster growth on its website will weigh on its profitability at the end of the year.

Click here for a video of the reporter discussing her findings.

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The impact of pooled inventory on branding risk

Shop on Amazon.com and you will find a lot of items sold by lots of different sellers. For many of those sellers, Amazon isn’t just handling acting as a store front; it is also handling the logistics of order fulfillment. Now suppose that Amazon has a particular product which both it and several third parties are selling out its warehouses. How should Amazon physically manage the inventory? Should it keep the inventory it is selling physically separate from that offered by third-party sellers? In many instances, Amazon chooses to do just the opposite, allowing for “stickerless, commingled inventory.” Here is an Amazon video explaining just what that means.

And here is how the Wall Street Journal explains the benefits of the program (Do You Know What’s Going in Your Amazon Shopping Cart?, May 11).

The system has enabled Amazon to make better use of its warehouse space and keep a wide variety of items in stock around the country. The idea is to give Amazon flexibility to ship certain products based on their proximity to customers, speeding delivery times. For third-party sellers, it saves them the trouble of having to label individual items sent to the Amazon warehouse.

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