[Anne] More MLOG moments

April 13, 2006

Well, Rida isn’t the only one who is having “MLOG moments” outside of class. Just the other day I was agonizing over the guest list for my wedding which is coming up this summer. I was trying to figure out who I thought would come and who wouldn’t. After a few minutes of guessing with my list, it popped into my head that I’d never be able to perfectly predict who would actually come…because as we have learned several times this year in every supply chain management course, the old adage still holds true: “The forecast is always wrong.” My feeling is that I’m positive it applies to guests lists, too.

Another incident happened the other day when I was watching television. There was a commercial on for a local car dealership that claimed they had “the car in stock you’re looking for 9 out of ten times!” I heard that and the MLOG part of my brain switched on… “That’s only a 90% CSL (Cycle Service Level)…I don’t think I’d be bragging about that if I was them. I would think in a customer service-oriented business they’d at least be aiming for a 95% or 97% CSL….”

And then I had to stop myself. It was, after all, only a 30-second commercial for a car dealership. Still, it underscores the fact that there are parts of my education from the past year that clearly affect the way I think about things now. I tend to notice more delivery trucks on the road like those yellow ones for DHL…or sometimes while driving I’ll wonder if the big tractor trailers surrounding my VW Golf on the highway are carrying anything on their backhaul route or if their trucks are empty…and believe me, I didn’t even know anything about backhauls last year! I think one of the interesting parts of studying logistics is that once you’re made aware of certain things, you realize that supply chain management is really all around you and affects you all the time, whether you’re the business or the consumer. It’s been surrounding you your whole life and you probably just hadn’t really noticed before.

Comments

[Anne]

Sheriff, Glad to know there are others out there that think like me!

[sheriff]

Hi Anne i am also a logistics professional and when i graduated from my studies i am now used to see that logistics and supply chain management around me......i hope this goes well with ur gazing at DHL Vans or Trucks....thinking about CSL related to a Commerical..........hope we can group people like us as "Logistics (LOGIC) Thinkers"