Project Infomation
When faced with a supply chain disruption, proactive and reactive supply chain risk management can in fact make or break a company’s existence. One of the most famous (or rather infamous) cases is the fire at the Philips microchip plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2000, which simultaneously affected both Nokia and Ericsson. However, both companies took a very different approach toward the incident, and in hindsight, clearly displayed how to and how not to handle supply chain disruptions.
In the late 1990s, Swedish-owned Ericsson was one of the big international players in the mobile phone industry, together with the Finnish company Nokia. My first mobile phone in 1996 was in fact a Nokia, but I switched to Ericsson in 1999, because they made much better phones, so I thought. While the phones may have been better, risk management for sure wasn’t.
- Client : Insight Studio
- Date : 20 Feb, 2018
- Skills : Project Planning
Challenge & Solution
Ericsson learned its lesson and now has a completely different supply chain risk management system in place. It starts with mapping all the components and products many tiers upstream the supply chain and identifies critical suppliers and sites that have to be prioritized and assessed further. After a rough assessment on how shortage will affect the supply chain, a more thorough investigation into probability and impact of different accidents at different suppliers is conducted to assess the impact on the supply chain as a whole, particularly the impact on business recovery time.
Our Process
Finally, risk management actions (protection) are evaluated against risk costs (impact and consequences), to avoid over-action or over-insurance against incidents. Not only Ericsson, but many other companies have also learned from this incident. Supply chain risk management (SCRM) is a necessary component of any supply chain. SCRM may lead to increased costs in the form of prevention measures, and SCRM may lead to increased lead time, in order to have buffers, should something happen. In essence, though, risk exposure always has a price, and as a company, one should think through what price (or rather cost, as in disruption cost) that is.
01
Improve sales & operations & production planning
02
Determine the right inventory level
03
Optimize the supply chain for perfect order planning
04
Improve sales & operations & production planning
Result Driven
In his 2006 article Robust strategies for mitigating supply chain disruptions, Christopher Tang uses Nokia’s approach as one of three prime examples of how to counter supply chain disruptions. Most recently Jon Hansen of Procurement Insights decided to reopen the case and ask industry experts to weigh in with their opinion as to what happened at Ericsson and why, and what they believe should take place to address the obvious shortfalls on a go forward basis.
(Credit: husdal.com )
(Credit: husdal.com )