Chain thinking

Osborn (1953) has identified chain thinking as the major mechanism driving idea production. It is often called ping-ponging or hike jacking. The concept of chain thinking has already been introduced in Section 7.3, Assumptions, and is described as 

The process begins when one participant proposes an idea that is immediately transformed by another participant and leads to the next idea that idea consequently inspires another participant to present his or her idea, and so on. This is a complex process in which participants must feel comfortable feeding on other people s ideas and using all kinds of associations to develop their ideas, which in fact belong to the group, not to the individual participants. 

Osborn (1953) claims that the ancient Greeks were first to recognize the importance of associations in human creativity. They introduced three classes of association contiguity, similarity, and contrast. The first class, contiguity, contains cases of associations in which both ideas or design concepts are close. For example, 

In the case of the similarity class, ideas are somehow similar. For example, 

Finally, the contrast class contains associations in which ideas represent opposite ends of spectrum or are strongly contrasting and for this reason often come together. For example. 

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Riggs DA, Robbins SL (Contributor). The Executive s Guide to Supply Management Strategies Building Supply Chain Thinking into All Business Processes. 1998. 

All associations are intended to initiate or expand chains of thought, sequences of ideas, or lines of evolution of ideas (using the terminology of the theory of evolution of engineering systems [Zlotin and Zusman 2006]). They are like catalysts in the process of chain thinking. 

When the participants seem to feel comfortable with the problem, the chair offers one of the ideas that he or she developed earlier the craziest one will work best. When this is done, usually everybody laughs and chain thinking begins. Obviously, it does not necessarily need to be the chair who starts the process—any participant could do this—but the chair must be prepared to begin if nobody else volunteers. 

On the other hand, the supply chain is also operational, because the end-to-end supply chain concept has to work in practice, and this is all about getting supply chain thinking and skill-sets into every level of management and supervision, and into execution in every business function, in every player in the value chain. The drive for change needs to come from the top senior management, and the leadership of change to convert supply chain thinking into operational practice, must be taken up as a boardroom responsibility. 

Davenport and Brooks (2004) describe how enterprise systems in large firms have evolved to support SCM and how the Internet has brought a revolution into supply chain thinking. The low cost, ease of use, and accessibility of the Internet has facilitated growth in cross-organizational... 

In an environment of scarcity, offering different levels of availability is a strategic application of supply chain thinking. It recognizes that immediate availability has a value over delivery in six months. A supply chain providing product today at a higher price would solve some customers immediate needs. Other customers could choose to wait their turns in the queue. Of course, the premium for short-term response will... 

There needs to be greater awareness of supply chain thinking early in a product s development. This will require management interventions in that process. 

Assign a statistical weight as if an H follows a C, or if the H is the first monomer in the chain. Think of cr as a nucleation parameter for initiating a helix. For most amino acids in proteins, s is slightly greater than 1 and cr 10 to [61. Propagation is easy but nucleation is difficult. 

We begin with a look backward at the development of supply chain thinking. A primary theme of this book is that supply chain management is not just a tactical discipline. The basis for competition in many industries has shifted from inside to outside the single company. Competitive success will rest in the total enterprise tiiat develops, makes, and delivers both products and services. 

The models we discuss here are shown in Table 3.1. Note in Table 3.1 that each takes a different approach in interpreting the business environment. This is to be expected at this stage in the development of supply chain thinking. There are often no absolutes in the managerial world. But there are some helpful ways to think about decisions on where to invest to improve competitive position. 

The model shown in Table 4.2 has application to supply chain thinking. Applying this model to the idea of potency. Stage 4 manufacturing — or supply chain — strategies would be the most "potent" in terms of supporting... 

One s supply chain strategy will depend on grid placement. Table 5.1, also published earlier, has examples of how supply chain thinking can apply to define a general strategy that fits each box. High-potency projects are those that will help the company accomplish the intent shown in the table. 

Enforcing end-to-end supply chain thinking within the focal firm, its suppliers and its logistics service providers. 

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