Page 7 - Logistics News Sept/Oct 2017

Opinion

Incentivising business IT

– surely not war?

By Doug Hunter

We complain times are tough. But they’re always tough for someone. If we’re not tough
enough we resist change – and remain happy with the status quo. It appears for most,
only crises force radical change.

YOU HIT a problem – material shortages holding just a warning that change is required. You can
up production; picking products to fi ll sales orders probably fi nd a fi x, maak a plan, sebenza ubuntu.
takes so long you missed today’s delivery; your Alas when it’s your industry, or worse our nation,
customers load priority changed but you learned it isn’t easy and takes a compelling event to be
too late and your last truck’s on the road. Now the catalyst. For you only it could be a small
you’re mad and look for someone to blame. Well adjustment but for an industry or nation it needs
don’t look too far – it may be you. leadership taking problems through opportunity,
We are all so busy executing to plan that when it building appetites for radical change, fueling
changes, we hear too late or just don’t hear. It’s that nervous excitement towards innovation. So how do
blasted system again, giving wrong information we know what to do?
or telling us stuff we know is wrong. It was much When the present seems impossible and the
easier when we just got on with the job. Yes it was future too far – which is the reality today in South
easier for me to do my bit well, but it may have Africa - have a coff ee or two and read some
screwed up everyone else’s plan including yours history. Look at lessons learned or copied after
and the guy paying the bills – our customer. serious confl ict, like war.
Basic processes are probably not settled in. The Second World-War aff ected our trading
They may not be trusted/shared by all users - silo- partners and us. Sure it ended 70 years ago. but
ed not cross-functionally eff ective. Perhaps we look at the 20 years post-1945 and how people,
never trained operators in system discipline, data/ governments and nations reacted.
transaction accuracy management, perhaps our
IT is just too old to react fast enough – you know. Returning from destruction
weekly plans for daily execution, so every Tuesday In Europe, the UK and Asia factories were in
we’re back to “rapid re-planning” - chaos. ruins. Infrastructure and logistics were unusable
If this is you or could be you, don’t panic! It’s or broken badly. Millions of soldiers returned to

18 September/October 2017 | Logistics News