El concepto Uber se traslada al transporte logistico

 

Tras un tiempo en el que se hablo mucho del potencial de la “Uberizacion” del transporte logístico, el Gigante Asiático ha sido el primero en desarrollar una aplicación similar a Uber centrada en el transporte de mercancías. 

Gracias a las nuevas tecnologías y al big data, esta aplicación ha sido capaz de cubrir un nicho de mercado hasta ahora inexplorado, poniendo en contacto a empresas y transportistas y facilitando la interacción entre ellos.

Todavía es pronto para saber si este modelo tendrá éxito fuera de China, pero con su introducción en el mercado sudamericano parece que hay futuro para esta nueva aplicación y los posible competidores que sin duda surgirán en el futuro cercano.

El articulo al completo lo podéis encontrar en el siguiente enlace.

El Uber de los camioneros

Has COVID-19 slowed down our quest for making packaging more sustainable?

2020 was supposed to be the ‘year of sustainability’, building on the momentum of last year where climate action and reducing plastics pollution were at the forefront of discussions.

However, since the outbreak of COVID-19 focus has quite rightly shifted towards overcoming the pandemic.

Most companies have been focussing on ensuring the safety of their staff and customers, managing elevated demand for essential items, and supporting their local communities.

This has mean that the packaging supply chain has had to become more flexible as demand has proven to be unpredictable.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that we have already seen signs that many consumers have rethought their preference for ‘packaging free’ consumption. With hygiene and safety being more prominent in consumers’ minds, some food retailers have gone back to increasing packaging and individually wrapping fruits and vegetables.

Some foodservice chains have also halted use of personal cups because of the risk of contamination, bringing back up the use of disposable paper cups and single use alternatives.

There is a risk that the low oil price may lead to an increase in the use of virgin plastic materials and in some places, single use plastic bags have become widespread rather than reusable ones.

It’s hard to anticipate what the impact of COVID-19 will be on sustainable packaging, but one thing we can say for sure is that in the short term, our behaviours and habits have been transported to the ones we had 10 years ago.

The importance of cost to serve in Supply Chain

In this post, we are going to shed some light on one of the most critical concepts in Supply Chain that most times is not being given the importance it deserves; cost to serve.

Cost to serve is a process that will allow you to identify the total cost of servicing your customers at a customer and product level in order for your business to provide the appropriate levels of service to achieve its business goals.

Cost to serve is critical as it shows that each product and customer demands different approaches and has a different cost profile. Many businesses today still adopt a one size fits all service policy.

Different customers drive different supply chain and logistics costs; large customers, small customers; large orders, small orders, frequent orders, less frequent orders, strict delivery time windows, detailed invoices required in triplicate, constant account management needs etc

The same is true of your products; large products that take up more warehouse space, products that have to be kitted or bundled, products that need temperature controlled storage and many more.

If you can identify the characteristics of your customers and products or services that drive your cost to serve, you will be able to identify low margin customers, low margin products and services and high cost processes so that you can make sure all of your customers are more profitable by providing the right service levels to the right customers.

Overall, understanding Cost to serve will enables your business to focus on both long-term decisions and the prioritisation of short-term actions and will make you able to reposition customers and services, and how they are served to improve overall margin.

The video below explains in a very graphical form the importance of cost to serve and how airlines have been able to make the most out of it!

Bio-plastics: is not gold all that glitters

It shouldn’t be a surprise that there is often confusion when talking about bio-plastics, In this post we will clarify some terms and also shed some light on the cons of bio-plastics.

Let’s start by listing some of the different types of plastic:

- Degradable: All plastic is degradable, even traditional plastic, however not all degrade at the same speed.

Some additives to traditional plastics make them degrade more quickly. Photodegradable plastic breaks down more readily in sunlight; oxo-degradable plastic disintegrates more quickly when exposed to heat and light.

- Biodegradable: Biodegradable plastic can be broken down completely into water, carbon dioxide and compost by microorganisms under the right conditions.

- Compostable: Compostable plastic will biodegrade in a compost site. Microorganisms break it down into carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass at the same rate as other organic materials in the compost pile, leaving no toxic residue.

If we turn our focus now to bio-plastics, we can identify two main types:

- PLA (polyactic acid): Typically made from the sugars in corn or potato starch, or sugarcane. It is biodegradable, carbon-neutral and edible.

PLA can look and behave like polyethylene (used in plastic films, packing and bottles), polystyrene (plastic cutlery) or polypropylene (packaging, textiles).

- PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate): Made by microorganisms that produce plastic from organic materials. The microbes are deprived of nutrients like nitrogen or oxygen, but given high levels of carbon.

They produce PHA as carbon reserves, which they store in granules until they have more of the other nutrients they need to grow and reproduce. Companies can then harvest the microbe-made plastic.

Because it is biodegradable and will not harm living tissue, PHA is often used for medical applications such as sutures, slings, bone plates and skin substitutes.

Now that we have clarified some of the different types of bio-plastic, let’s address the controversy.

While bio-plastics are generally considered to be more eco-friendly than traditional plastics this isn’t necessarily true when the materials’ life cycles were taken into consideration.

Bio-plastics production results in greater amounts of pollutants, due to the fertilisers and pesticides used in growing the crops and the chemical processing needed to turn organic material into plastic.

While the biodegradability of bio-plastics is an advantage, most need high temperature industrial composting facilities to break down and very few cities have the infrastructure needed to deal with them.; as a result, bio-plastics often end up in landfills where, deprived of oxygen, they may release methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

When bio-plastics are not discarded properly, they can contaminate batches of recycled plastic and harm recycling infrastructure. If bio-plastic contaminates recycled plastic, the entire lot could be rejected and end up in a landfill. So separate recycling streams are necessary to be able to properly discard bio-plastics.

Another point is the fact that the land required for bio-plastics competes with food production because the crops that produce bio-plastics can also be used to feed people. In addition, the water and petroleum used to run the farm has a greater carbon footprint.

Finally, at the moment bio-plastics are still relatively expensive, 20 to 50 percent more costly than fossil fuel based plastics because of the complex process used to convert corn or sugarcane into the building blocks for the final product.

In summary, right now, it’s hard to claim that bio-plastics are more environmentally friendly than traditional plastics when all aspects of their life cycle are considered: land use, pesticides and herbicides, energy consumption, water use, greenhouse gas and methane emissions, biodegradability, "recyclability" and more, but as researchers around the world work to develop greener varieties and more efficient production processes, bio-plastics do hold promise to help lessen plastic pollution and reduce our carbon footprint.

COVID-19: impacts on supply and demand

How resilient and responsive is your supply chain? If you did not know before, there’s a chance you will soon find out.

There’s been a lot of talk about risk management with regards to Brexit, which seemed like enough of a challenge, but now many nations around the world are facing an event that, unlike Brexit, couldn’t be predicted or properly planned for.  

As supply chains tend to be highly customer-focused, changes in customer behaviour and demand has impacts throughout the supply chain.

In China, retailers reported changes to the demand profiles of specific products, as shopper behaviour changed in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.

One trend observed since the outbreak has been a surge in online shopping. This is not surprising and a consequence of people going out less, in response to government advice to self-isolate.

KFC and Pizza Hut started trialling contactless delivery services in an attempt to reduce person-to-person transmission and JD.com introduced five vending machines to a residential compound in Beijing, offering residents 24/7 access to fresh fruit, vegetables and more. 

Demand and supply planning becomes difficult when demand patterns change.  In the case of COVID-19, there isn’t a sufficiently comparable historical event that can be used to get a sense for customer demand.  For products that are seeing surges in demand as a result of the outbreak, supply chains will likely struggle with replenishment and lead times will increase, unless additional sources can be found and/or capacity can be increased at current suppliers. This will affect on-shelf availability (OSA).

Some retailers have attempted to actively manage demand for products that shoppers seem to be stockpiling.  UK retailer Boots has tried to reduce the demand for hand sanitizers by introducing signs on the shelves that limit customers to two per shopper.  In Australia, Woolworths has applied a quantity limit of four packs of toilet paper per purchaser.

Retailers should consider the possibility of a scenario in which consumers go out less and demand more grocery home deliveries.  If this happens, retailers may need to enhance online delivery capacity in order to meet increased online demand. 

Finally, businesses need to understand where their supply network partners are located and consider what the impact of the virus is in each of those locations.  They should also consider how worsening circumstances might affect operations at these locations.  Businesses will need to assess whether they can reduce risk by procuring finished goods and raw materials from alternative sources.  

Situation is changing rapidly and every day we have new news, but ultimately the reality is that supply chains will be severely impacted, but will also be a key player in solving the crisis that is yet to fully materialise across the globe.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is management tool that measures the loyalty that exists between a provider and a consumer. It serves as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research.

Calculating the NPD is very easy using the answer to a key question; using a 0-10 scale: How likely is it that you would recommend my brand/service to a friend or colleague?

Responses are grouped as follows:

- Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fuelling growth.

- Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.

- Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

Subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters yields the Net Promoter Score, which can range from a low of -100, if every customer is a detractor, to a high of 100, if every customer is a promoter.

The importance of the Net Promoter Score is that it gives you insights into your customer loyalty spectrum, and by measuring customer loyalty you can identify customer experience weak points that need improving.

Customer Service in S&OP

Today I´m just bringing an article that has really resonated with me. How important you think Customer Service is for your S&OP process?

Worth spending the time reading it

Customer Service in S&OP

Continuous improvement - Improve 1% every day

The marginal gains philosophy is really easy to understand; it comes down to the idea that, if you just improve 1% each day, you're going to accumulate some pretty hefty results for minimal perceived effort.

However, who can get excited about a 1% daily improvement? Well, think that over a year, those daily 1% improvements will have stacked up to give a total improvement of over 3,700%!

Improving 1% each day can yield some BIG dividends, and the best example of that is probably the GB cycling Olympic team in London 2012 with Chris Brailsford at the helm.

The whole principle came from the idea that if you break down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together

No stone was left unturned; they even paid attention to things like always washing your hands thoroughly to help avoid getting sick or taking your own pillow when you travel so you're better rested.

Thanks to this "aggregation of marginal gains" the British cycling team dominated the competition.

However, this isn't just about professional athletes, the basic idea of accumulating small increments of progress can work for everything.

Healthcare, aviation, learning and even speed eating have benefited in the past by this philosophy, so…what can you do right now to improve by just 1%?

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, what is what?

In this post, I am hoping we will shed some light on these topical concepts, that although are usually used interchangeably, they do not quite refer to the same things.

The main idea behind these three concepts, lie in the image below:

As you can see, Deep Learning (DL) is a subset of Machine Learning (ML), which is also a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Let’s dig deeper so that we can understand better what each of them three concepts encompass.

Artificial Intelligence:

As the name suggests, artificial intelligence can be interpreted as incorporating human intelligence to machines.

Whenever a machine completes tasks based on a set of stipulated rules that solve problems (algorithms), that behaviour is what is called artificial intelligence.

We classify AI-powered machines into two groups; general and narrow.

The general artificial intelligence machines can intelligently solve problems, for example, moving or manipulating objects, recognizing whether someone has raised the hands, or solving a mathematic problem.

The narrow intelligence AI machines can perform specific tasks very well, sometimes better than humans can; however, they are limited in scope. The technology used for classifying images on Pinterest is an example of this.

Machine Learning:

As we already saw, ML is a subset of AI (in fact it is just a technique for realizing AI) and can be loosely described as ability of the computer systems to learn. 

The intention of ML is to train algorithms to enable machines to learn by themselves how to make decisions.

Training in machine learning entails giving a lot of data to the algorithm and allowing it to learn more about the processed information.

For example, below is a table that identifies the type of fruit based on certain characteristics:

As you can see on the table above, the fruits are differentiated based on their weight and texture.

However, the last row gives only the weight and texture, without the type of fruit. A machine-learning algorithm can be developed to try to identify whether the fruit is an orange or an apple.

After the algorithm is fed with the training data, it will learn the differing characteristics between an orange and an apple and predict accurately the type of fruit with those characteristics in the future.

Deep Learning:

As earlier mentioned, deep learning is a subset of ML; in fact, it’s simply a technique for realizing machine learning; DL is the next evolution of machine learning.

DL algorithms are inspired by the information processing patterns found in the human brain. Just like we use our brains to identify patterns and classify various types of information, deep learning algorithms can be taught to accomplish the same tasks for machines.

The brain usually tries to decipher the information it receives. It achieves this through labelling and assigning the items into various categories.

Whenever we receive a new information, the brain tries to compare it to a known item before making sense of it which is the same concept deep learning algorithms employ.

Comparing deep learning vs machine learning can help to understand their differences. While DL can automatically discover the features to be used for classification, ML requires these features to be provided manually.

Hopefully you are now slightly more clear about what each of these concepts mean and how they are interlinked!

Agile methodology: Kanban VS Scrum

After a very comprehensive intro on Project Management methodologies where we explored Agile VS Waterfall, in today's post we are going to deep dive on some of the differences between Kanban and Scrum, two of the frameworks within the Agile framework.

While there are some clear differences between both practices, the principles are largely the same.

Scrum is a tool used to organise work into small, manageable pieces that can be completed by a cross-functional team within a prescribed time period called a “sprint” (generally 2-4 weeks long). To plan, organise, administer, and optimise this process, Scrum relies on at least three prescribed roles: 

-  The Product Owner, responsible for initial planning, prioritising, and communication with the rest of the company

- The Scrum Master, responsible for overseeing the process during each sprint.

- The Team Members, responsible to carry out the purpose of each sprint, such as producing software code.

Kanban is also a tool used to organise work for the sake of efficiency, and like Scrum, Kanban encourages work to be broken down into manageable chunks, however, where Scrum limits the amount of time allowed to accomplish a particular amount of work, by means of sprints, Kanban limits the amount of work allowed in any one condition as only so many tasks can be ongoing.

 In the table below you can find the main differences between Scrum and Kanban:

Finally the video below illustrates very clearly the differences and points out how the Scrum and Kanban boards work.

Until next time!