Winning the Race

With the introduction of these new manufacturing techniques, co-location will become the norm. Supply chains will shorten, become more intricate, and new forms of networks and relationships will emerge. Market-driven value network will become a business differentiator for leaders and an Achilles heel for laggards. 

While the tipping points for Supply Chain 2020 seem far off on the horizon, now is the tune to prepare. The supply chain of the future cannot be built overnight and there is substantial momentum in today s organization that must be overcome. To drive success, build momentum by following this nine-step process  

Build a three-year road map that outlines supply chain excellence. 

Tie projects and initiatives to this three-year road map. Make it holistic and overarching. 

Build a guiding coalition to enable success. Make sure that it has the right mix of leaders and managers. 

---

Using classical design techniques, the autopilot will be tuned to return the vessel on the desired course within the minimum transient period. With an optimal control strategy, a wider view is taken. The objective is to win the race, which means completing it in the shortest possible time. This in turn requires ... 

In the first to file system, the first person who makes a patent application at the Patent Office wins the race for patent rights regardless of whether or not he was the first to make the invention covered by the application. 

A practical approach of heat balance, often used in assessment of heat accumulation situations, is the time-scale approach. The principle is as in any race the fastest wins the race. For heat production, the time frame is obviously given by the time to maximum rate under adiabatic conditions. Then the removal is also characterized by a time that is dependent of the situation and this is defined in the next sections. If the TMRld is longer than the cooling time, the situation is stable, that is, the heat removal is faster. At the opposite, when the TMRld is shorter than the characteristic cooling time, the heat release rate is stronger than cooling and so runaway results. 

When the (aqueous) medium contains both proteins and cells the smaller protein molecules (of which the number-concentration is usually higher than that of the cells) win the race for the surface and cover the surface before the cells arrive. Hence, as a rule, the cells adhere onto an adsorbed proteinaceous layer. 

The noted technical weaknesses are certainly not due to the total neglect of such issues and are probably not unexpected. It simply takes considerable time and effort to develop the technology to exploit the new techniques. Those who started early, developing the techniques to a level where these can be sufficiently controlled for an industrial application, are more likely to win the race to the market place. In the case of medicinal products fi om biotechnology, fermentation technology is an essential element of the technical development. In Japan this has been recognized very early and Japan s breweries have put considerable money into fermentation research. 

It is impossible to predict which type of mesogen will win the race to become ultimate LCD technology. But it is a safe bet to assume that fluorinated substructures will play a predominant role. 

Diazo carbenoid chemistry, however, is not yet on the finishing line, but developments such as the synthesis of polymer-bound soluble rhodium complexes that are recoverable and, therefore, less sensitive to the exceedingly expensive rhodium (Doyle et al., 1992 a) or the use of relatively inexpensive chiral auxiliaries for enantiocontrol (Davies and Cantrell, 1991) are still energy reserves that may be important to win the race ... 

Finally, we sometimes quote probabilities in odds form. If a horse has a chance of 1/7 of winning a race, it has a probability of 6/7 of not winning the race. The ratio of these two probabilities is referred to as the odds and (if quoted in the order not winning to winning) is clearly 6 to 1. 

To run the race for Supply Chain 2020, companies need to train. Like an athlete training for a competition, the teams need to be agile, to listen to coaching, and to make the right investments. Most organizations need to work on these three behaviors to have the right stuff to win the race. 

Platform teams rose because competitors were winning the race to market with new and fresh designs. The old Chrysler had a once-size-fits-all process. How innovative could one department be in trying to serve a diverse range of brand names, each with its own goals and identity ... 

Races are no recreational time, don t mix that up. Because you represent the firm all the time, it is not really relaxing, because you are under tension and pressure to perform, that you have to win the race or be in front if possible. 

Then when you have a crew of customers, who does this just for fun, who all go out the night before, and you re in your bed, because you want to sail and win the race the next day and then the next day you make a lot of mistakes because the boys are not concentrated. [...]. So the sport changes for yourself, I don t know... I started it because it was fun, /I../ and also competition, but due to the high degree of professionalism, [..] it becomes more of a job, gets more stressing and changes a lot for yourself." (Sportl, embedded lead user)... 

---