When it comes to supply management performance, there’s truth in the old adage, “You get what you pay for.” This point was driven home to me during recent meetings I had with separate supply management organizations.
Last week, an executive at a Massachusetts-based technology manufacturer was complaining about losing five of his key sourcing and commodity experts: [...]

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One of the best things about my research career is that I’ve had the chance to get to know some of the great minds and practitioners in supply management. I have been fortunate enough to know Doug Smock, an award-winning Editor-in-Chief of Purchasing Magazine and Plastics World (among others), for more than 15 years. Doug shares a common passion for supply [...]

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AMR’s Supply Chain Saves the World concept has re-energized my focus on environmental and socially responsible supply management practices. As a lowly researcher of commodity and electronic componentry markets in the early 1990’s, I kept my sanity (and sense of self-worth) by investigating environmental initiatives, like Energy Star and the first regulatory effort to remove hazardous materials from circuit [...]

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For evidence of how supply chain straegies can balance financial and competitive goals with environmental and social responsiblity look no further than these examples from Hewlett-Packard’s presentation at the AMR Supply Chain Executive Conference:

By the end of next year, Hewlett-Packard will have recycled 1 billion pounds of electronic waste. The company now gets 60% more of [...]

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The fragile Arizona desert ecosystem served as an ideal backdrop for AMR Research to test its latest theme: Supply Chain Management as a profit generator and environmental and social defender.

On the surface, the concept that supply chain management can be used for good may sound more DC Comic’s Justice League than Harvard Business School. (Indeed, main [...]

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