by Janice Marquardt | Jul 1, 2025 | Processes, Savings
A few months ago, I had the immense privilege of working with the team at Iowa State University’s Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) to assess the supply chains at eight small Iowa-based manufacturers. The lessons we learned and their common threads...
by Janice Marquardt | Apr 1, 2025 | Definitions, Processes, Savings
Back in January, we talked about tail spend and ways to reduce your spend with the bottom 20% of suppliers. But what if you don’t really know which tail spend items/suppliers to keep and which to get rid of? What else should we think about when classifying our...
by Janice Marquardt | Feb 18, 2025 | Benefits, Processes, Supply Chain Career
I haven’t been in supply chain management as long as some, but I’ve been around long enough to have some observations on common errors supply chain practitioners make. Some are things many professionals can do better (such as continually learning) and some are very...