Write-ups of the work as it happens, with the numbers included. The occasional talk. Craig posts shorter notes on LinkedIn between these.
If the schedule changed three times before Monday, the floor has already decided it is optional. Then you are planning in a spreadsheet the MRP knows nothing about.
Nobody decides to run the plant on expedites. It creeps in. One weekly meeting with 12 people ate 156 hours a month: a full-time planner, spent ranking which customer screamed loudest.
When a delivery is late, everyone looks at the floor. The date was usually lost in quoting, planning or purchasing, weeks before the work order printed.
On-time delivery tells you last month was late. It does not tell a planner what to do on Tuesday. Pair the result you already watch with the input that actually moves it.
Earlee had grown into a Queensland Manufacturer of the Year without a formal S&OP process. This is what we found in the operational review, what we changed and where IFOT, stock cover and forecast accuracy landed afterwards.
Automating purchase-order life-cycle management, inter-branch transfers and stock redistribution. Delivered under budget, broke even in five weeks and returned 10:1 on the purchase order component alone.
Most operations don't have too few steps. They have too many. Where complexity hides, what it costs, and how to strip it back without cutting corners.
I ran this for the Australasian Supply Chain Institute. Strategy does not fail in the boardroom. It fails when the plan, the data and the people who have to run it are not connected.
The talk walks the Strategy House, then two pieces of work: planning a food manufacturer could run without us, and reading customer purchase orders with AI instead of re-keying them.
Watch on YouTube.
Craig shares practical notes on manufacturing operations and supply chain as the work happens. Follow for the latest.
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