Beyond the Numbers: Supply Chain Metrics

Brad Osborne, Director of Supply Chain

As time to market service providers, it is important to set clear goals and measure our progress toward those goals. However, we must take great care to look “beyond the numbers” to ensure our customers are not negatively impacted in our efforts to achieve world-class supply chain systems and processes.

A case in point is inventory turns. As almost anyone in supply chain can tell you, when it comes to inventory turns, more is better; when it comes to purchase price variance, decrease is good; and when it comes to on-time delivery, anything less than 100% is cause for concern. While here at Cogmedix we focus on these metrics as a measure of continuous improvement, we exercise great caution in selecting the mechanisms used for achieving those successes. We remain mindful of the adverse effects of being too aggressive with these levers, and know we must be vigilant in keeping them balanced with a “big picture” supply chain position that best supports our customers’ needs.

For example, efforts to increase turns by having material arrive just-in-time can easily backfire if not carefully balanced with the need to maintain some “comfort level” inventory on behalf of our customers in order to respond to their variations in demand. We must always remain ready and responsive by monitoring the supply chain environment not only for shifts in customer demand, but also for changes in supplier capabilities and conditions that could negatively impact our customers. And, we must always be ready to respond to those conditions and challenges to ensure our customers never miss a market opportunity.

At Cogmedix, we strive to achieve world-class results on behalf of our valued customers while maintaining the “uncommon flexibility” for which we are known in the medical device manufacturing industry. This is about more than just “making the numbers”; it is about ensuring our customers are delighted in every aspect of their experience!