Ensuring the safety of people during the Corona Virus is the most important issue, but it is also affecting business. Yesterday JCB, the UK maker of yellow diggers, announced it is cutting production and working hours at its UK factories as it faces component shortages from China. https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2020/feb/13/euro-low-recession-fears-coronavirus-growth-ec-business-live
Supply chain design is often overlooked as companies search for the lowest piece price (note they are rarely lowest total cost) alternatives. As I read the news I was reminded of the supply chain research we’ve conducted for over 25 years. We’ve written a number of articles on some of the most influential pieces of supply chain work we’ve helped shape, but as a reminder to all business leaders here’s the key reference book on creating extended value streams: It’s called Seeing the Whole Value Stream /shop/all-lean-book-shop-lean-enterprise-academy/seeing-the-whole-value-stream-2nd-edition and here is a great video from our own Peter Watkins on the work GKN did on the redesign of their extended value streams at one of our Lean Summits: