1. A BUSINESS - ENGINEERING JOINT RESEARCH CENTER AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY Creating Agile Supply Chains in the Chemical Industry Stephen P. Crane Director Supply Chain Air Products Bethlehem, PA May 14, 2008 Adapt Supply Chain Networks from Selling What I Make, to Making What I Sell
43. Thank you! Stephen Crane Director Supply Chain Air Products and Chemicals [email_address]
Hinweis der Redaktion
Creating Agile Supply Chains in the Chemical Industry" In today's business environment, it is important that a business be agile as well as efficient. Supply chains can help achieve this through the ability to respond quickly to customer demand and by reducing operating costs. Heightened customer expectations and shorter channel response times will be difficult to achieve for some companies, but for those that can deliver the right product in a timely fashion, increased market share and profitability will be the reward. The Performance Polymers business at Air Products has successfully transformed its' supply chain to become more agile and responsive to effectively deal with the increased volatility in the chemical industry. You will learn what key strategies and approaches this business utilized to create a more agile supply chain. As companies transition themselves to become more demand-driven, the ability to handle volatile demand becomes even more of a critical issue Demand volatility is a reality in many industries Not only are retailers serving end customers facing volatile demand, but this volatility is being passed on to manufactures and distributors at different stages of the industry value chains Many factors contribute to demand volatility, including increased customer choices, product customization, rapid technological improvements, global competition and upstream supply fluctuations From high tech to retail to chemical industries, this is a challenge being faced by companies across all verticals Traditional supply chain processes were designed to be push-driven The transition to becoming pull-driven has started and is slowly occurring in many industries Managing volatile demand efficiently in a demand driven environment is a significant challenge and requires companies to employ robust supply chain strategies I will touch on several approaches and strategies I have utilized to increase supply chain agility