Looking at this week's simulation,
if you were the customer Arugalo Medical how would you modify your timeline if the component you need from a vendor will be delayed for an unknown time period. Since it is critical component what action will you take to make sure this never happens again.
My answer to this question would be to make sure my company has multiple vendors "dual sourcing" for critical components of any device so we do not lose any money on the market. This is important because this makes sure you will always have a product on the market.
Hi All,
I would agree that this simulation really shows the importance of having multiple vendors. It will limit delays like this and allows you to always have a backup plan. When only one vendor has been selected, you are putting a lot of trust in one company, where unknown delays can happen. By having multiple vendors you have a much better chance to avoid all delays by switching vendors as needed.
-Andrew Nashed
Along with having multiple vendors, as a Manager you should also account for the risks that a potential vendor may run into issues. With this you schedule and plan dates for either an early finish, which is the date for the earliest possible finish for a task, or in this case a late finish, which is the latest possible finish date.
Well it depends, setbacks and delays often occur, but my question is, since this component is critical, does Arugalo Medical have a list of approved suppliers for this component and is this company the only supplier? Lastly, wouldn't it be reasonable that Arugalo Medical may have a surpluss of supplies in case of situations like this arise.
Chris
It is a good point brought up that the setbacks are definitely crucial to be taken into account during any product planning process. And with my experience, I have been in companies that make sure to have a six-month supply of the items required on the shelf just in case a supplier runs into issues with providing the adequate items. In addition, it gives the company (in this case the customer in simulation) enough cushion to maintain the product process still going while they find a solution of qualifying an additional vendor. In this week’s simulation, it provides the scenario that the company is providing the etched slides for its customer that is dealing with the product launch. So for this reason, it is imperative for the customer to have a plan of a secondary supplier even if they do not have any stock available yet. This is because the customer may run into the issue that the product launch is about to occur and they are still unsure of the popularity of the market after the launch and would not want to be stuck with a surplus of material.
I would say that an alternative option to dual sourcing would be to also keep a “cushion” stock or back stock of both the final product and each component. This is often done at times in the industry. To ensure that this back stock does not expire and become a waste of money, it is continually replaced with the new stock product. For example, if you are due to have 6 crates of a skin graft in back stock and you usually ship out 4 crates for sale on a monthly basis, you would create the 4 new crates, put them into back stock, take 4 crates out of back stock and ship them to your vender/retailer. It allows for constant flow and if something were to go wrong while producing the 4 crates intended for ship, you have the 6 in back stock, ready to go, while you take time to sort out the issue.
