TOCICO

Our supply chain (SC) synchronization story began years ago with a vision and an unassociated TOC meeting. The vision was my own originating from a 1982 improvement effort of military repair parts availability in Europe. The meeting occurred in 1991 at Clemson University’s Department of Defense sponsored model apparel factory where Dr. Goldratt introduced TOC to the leaders of a textile and apparel SC who were searching for solutions for the rapid demise of their industries. In 1992 a friend from the Clemson factory gave me The Goal which led me to take my SC vision to Clemson for implementation in 1995. Eventually the combined results from the vision and meeting contributed significantly to increasing combat capabilities, reducing injuries, and saving lives of U.S. Army warfighters deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. We began our work with a TOC current reality tree for a generic military textile-based SC which led to our goals of balancing inventories and maximizing Throughput SC-wide. We developed and tested our solutions by making Marine Corps shirts for recruits graduating from basic training in our TOC-based factory. We used common inventory data and integrated a foundation of TOC’s strategic buffer and constraints management concepts with other best practices and our own unique solutions to replace standard MRP and MIN/MAX computations of what to order, make, and move. We confirmed our synchronization goals were correct, but we had to go deeper to understand that two SC wide variation problems are caused by 16 variation drivers in all SCs. We eventually integrated 11 solutions into a single algorithm implemented by a simple SaaS tool to minimize all 16 variation drivers. By synchronizing our manufacturing with retail demand we eliminated 16 percent long-term stockouts and 90 percent of total shirt inventories. Army Challenge. In 2005 the U.S. Army urgently needed a new combat uniform system designed specifically for Iraq. With warfighters engaged in combat, historical fielding of similar systems in four to eight years with ten percent stockouts and huge safety buffer investments was totally unacceptable. In addition, industrial capacity was insufficient for meeting ongoing requirements and building up the required safety buffers. The Army asked Clemson for help because we had validated our initial improvements in other SCs. They approved our proposal for a one year ramp up of a multi-tiered fiber, textile, and apparel supply network consisting of three SCs and over 20 manufacturers with virtually no stockouts or inventory buffers. Results. Thirteen months later all soldiers of a Georgia National Guard infantry brigade deployed to Iraq with all right items in right sizes and almost no remaining inventory. Because of our performance and strong recommendations from all manufacturers, the Army used our software for all units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan for over nine years. Results were fastest ever new product deployment, virtually no stockouts or expedites, well over 50 percent inventory reductions, and level manufacturing requirements.