“Wisdom is given equally to everybody. The point is whether one can exercise it.” - Taiichi Ohno, The “Ten Precepts”

The supply chain profession has recently run the gauntlet of existential challenges. Is it possible that - given enough time - they could return to the old ways? 

There have recently been a number of news stories about retailers returning to just-in-time inventory management. If that is the case, and supply chains are returning to pre-pandemic practices with minimal changes, then we may be setting ourselves up to forget… and fall prey to the same failures once again.

In this week’s Art of Supply, Kelly Barner starts by looking back at just how ‘out’ just-in-time inventory management was:

• Remembering the supply chain aftershocks of 2020, 2021, and 2022
• Looking at the principled roots of just-in-time inventory management that originally allowed it to gain success
• And thinking seriously about what we need to do to return to just-in-time inventory management, should that be the right answer, in a responsible way

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
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