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Weakest links of a supply chain

MM: Isn’t the other idea of a supply chain the notion of constraints or constraint theory? That is, the supply chain is as efficient as its weakest link.

MB: Well, certainly if you use the kind of lean inventory-management strategies where you’re trying to minimize the inventory that you’re carrying—then, yes. You have to have a lot of trust that the inventory is going to be replenished rapidly by the party on the other side, and these Web-based SaaS solutions provide visibility that dramatically increases this trust because each player can see what is happening and also dramatically reduces the risk of failure.

MM: Isn’t that in fact reality of today’s economy? Virtually, if you’re not lean, you’re carrying a whole bunch of inventory or raw materials on your income statement. So inherently you’re seeing all of that as, “Gee—not on my financials.”

MB: In fact, that is one of the things our solutions target. We have specific dashboards and alerts that identify for each of your many, many thousand of items, which ones are at risk of being out of stock or of having excess stock. They are solutions that allow you to run lean without getting into trouble.

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