Corporate

China Isn’t Being Displaced

I find myself confused between what I read in the press and my personal experience. One example is the exodus of manufacturing from China to North America. While this widely espoused turn of events may play well to nationalism and hope for local job creation, I don’t see it. My clients are being well served

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Turning Ordinary to Great

There are times when I wonder why companies have purchasing departments. Wouldn’t it be a great cost reduction to get rid of the overhead for this group and just let designers pick suppliers and set component pricing? A demand planner could interface with contract manufacturers that would keep costs competitive and take care of all

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Vertical Integration Champions

Now that the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 is over and the flurry of Freebenchmarking.com activity resulting from it is under control, I have had time to reflect on the various participants at the exhibition and the issue of vertical integration. I must confess to being most impressed by the Koreans and would give them

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Knowledge From Vertical Integration

Exactly what knowledge do market-leading companies gain from vertical integration? My thought process here considers a very high-level product design process. Though I will portray that process as linear and sequential, the reality is messier, iterative, and probably chaotic. For my purpose, the process starts with a market spec, which defines the customer experience (a

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Avoiding Inventory Overload

As chief procurement officer for Nortel Networks Ltd. during the downturn in the optical business in 2000, I had to preside over the management of billions of dollars of excess material. This is not something I ever want to have to do again, and I am sure none of you want to do it, either.

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