Hey,

Sketch out the Product & Operations value chain as follows:

R&D-> Product Development->Demand & Supply Planning->Sourcing & Procurement->Manufacturing & Production->Delivery & Distribution-> Reverse/Returns Logistics

So, depending on the case, map out where the problem lies/or your hypothesis and work through this. Most of the times, its one or more of the following:

• Inefficient product portfolio/long tail i.e 80% of revenue comes from 10-20% of the products
• Poor Forecasting i.e. forecasted demand & actual demand are way off resulting in poor customer experience (order not filled on time and in full)
• Inventory stock outs i.e not enough inventory available (either in warehouse or retail channel)
• Excess inventory which results excess operational cost trapped in supply chain
• Supplier lead-times are long resulting in delayed arrivals of raw materials/finished goods
• Manufucturing throughput unable to meet demand
• Distribution Network performance i.e. SLAs not met, orders missed, not delivered on-time

Happy to help you get into details of this. Feel free to drop me a direct message.

Hi there,

Remember that your framework/structure is all about figuring out, at the highest level, what impacts the decision. So, at any stage you're in, think "What level am I at". Then, ask questions at that level.

For example, if a product isn't delivered on time, please don't ask a million "level 4" questions like you're currently doing! Rather, figure out what is the highest level split that exists. This means, you want to think "Ok, this is either a supplier production issue, a distributor issue, or a us issue (we're not ordering with enough notice)".

That's it! It's 1 of 3 things. So, ask a higher level question against each one of those.

For any case you're going to seriously struggle if you continue this scattergun approach. You need structure!