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by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 3:10:08 PM   | Abstract: | Mastering sales and operations planning takes technology as well as cultural and organizational change. But the payoff can be substantial. |
Ever tried to pick out new carpeting for your home? So many colors, styles, and textures to choose from; where do you start? The first consideration is always whether or not it will work with the wallpaper and furniture in the room. The problem, however, is that the little sample swatch doesn't provide the full picture of whether or not the room will truly come together once the carpet is installed. In essence, the trouble with picking out carpet is that the process is fraught with incomplete information and a communication disconnect. Shaw Industries Inc., a maker of carpeting, has suffered from a similar type of disconnect when it comes to balancing the supply of and demand for its products. In Shaw's case, the problem stems from an inherent language barrier between manufacturing and sales and marketing -- even the definition of "dollars" differs from one department to the other. Sales and marketing, for instance, thinks about dollars from the perspective of driving revenue. Manufacturing defines dollars in terms of unit price and cost. So, even after years of leaning out the supply chain and deploying technology tools to increase visibility throughout operations, there's still a major bottleneck: communication. "We can increase visibility into the [business] processes, but we can't increase the communication process," says Chris Whisenant, manager of logistical systems and forecasting at Shaw Industries (Dalton, GA). To some extent, people still function in silos, he says. "They are trying to talk through phone calls and e-mail, but nobody is understanding what the communication process is." [Click to continue] |