Reflection - Visualiation

Challenge

I am purchasing and logistics specialist in an international gold mining company who is  in charge of procurement of goods such as mechanical equipment or diverse work-site  requirements to to mine site in Africa. Recently the amount of the order of the goods  we received from the mine site reached to an uncontrollable number along with their  urgencies as the operations need to be expanded. Thus, delays and following that  complaints from the mine site started to arise. Our supply chain management team was  asked to create a project to find out reasons of limitations with procurement to explain  other departments current capabilities. Because mine site applies a vast pressure on  supply chain department to receive all the orders always on time. Conflicts between  supply chain management team and mine-site causes processes to be even longer than  usual. To determine existing problems, and to explain these to other departments with  the simplest way, a workshop of two weeks was started.

Selection

Visualization is the fundamental tool selected to determine flowchart of supply chain in  the company. The reason of the visualization slection is that mapping of activities along  with the stakeholders of supply chain can be comprehended easily with a summarizing  flowchart. As explained by Angela Myer in the first week of the course: “pictures and  images help us better narrate how system works. Idea is to prepare a general  overarching flowchart which illustrates key activities, stakeholders, problem causes in  delivery. The purpose of the workshop was to establish a concrete base for a further  performance improvement practice.

Application

Initially supply chain team was asked to prepare a workflow for procurements that they  are responsible for. Four specialist in the team, drew sketches of the recent  procurements they managed in last two months. Thus a pool of stakeholders being  involved to the supply chain were determined recently. Then the importances of  suppliers are identified as a result of discussion and they are written in bubbles. Bubble  sizes indicate the importance of each supplier. The bigger size refers to the more  importance of that supplier for the company. Later on general activities are drawn as a  result of brainstorming to summarize overall supply chain with the members of the  department. Finally, with key stakeholders and activities defined, determination of  problems arising on steps of supply chain flowchart are discussed. Problems that were  dealth with by each specialist according to the experiences are drawn inside red squares  with keywords, either inside or outside the company. Eventually, overall map of supply  chain was prepared to present responsibles from the departments being involved to  procurement.

The map is intended to serve as a bridge between mine site and supply chain  department to solve conflict, and find solutions to existing problems. In a meeting, the  map was presented and detailed for other departments. At the end of the meeting,  other departments agreed on the fact that majority of the problems causing delays in

procurement stems from insufficient communication between departments. Thus, the  flow of knowledge is blocked and some processes must be repeated over and over again.  Workflow provided an abstract yet explanatory overview on suppl chain activities for  other departments, and raised more awareness on the actual facts.

Insight

Outcomes of the visualization based workshop were found significantly effective by  managers of each department. More efficient sommunication and collaboration started  to be observed between mine-site and office departments, mostly with procurement.  What I found mostly effective was identification of the importance of suppliers for the  company. This helped us evaluate the replaceability of many suppliers we are working  with. Visual explanation of activities made it much easier for us to describe some major  issues to others by providing them a wider perspective to look at.

Approach

As I had to use the visualization tool in a hands-on experience, I became more aware of  how effective and simple it could be to deliver ideas and persuade others. However, for  the following steps of the supply chain performance improvement study in my company,  I would prefer using learning launch to focus more on problems and their solutions in a  timely manner. Because solving the problems requires more idea generation than  depiction of activities with visualization tools.

