Anecdote time. In the months when I was traveling to visit supply chain crisis managers I was also invited to the ESA mission control center in Darmstadt, ESOC. The mission control room looked exactly as one would expect from the Apollo era: hushed silence and huge monitors.
We were gazing into the control room from a somewhat unkempt anteroom when our tour guide, a true rocket scientist, pointed toward an inconspicuous whiteboard in a corner that looked worse for the wear.
"If there is anything going wrong in here *points at mission control room*, all the experts assemble out here *points at disheveled whiteboard* to work out a solution. And once they agree on a solution, they all sign off here *points at a row of sign-off boxes at the top*."
"And once we got everyone's sign-off, we'll put it in the records to show that this was a consensus decision. Most of these decisions are about multi-hundred-million Euro investments."
My pitch became pretty simple after that: "We're building this whiteboard in virtual."
My pitch became pretty simple after that: "We're building this whiteboard in virtual."
They also had a separate room where "the true geniuses" assembled (the folks who calculated space probe trajectories).
But the takeaway, and that became a commonality among all the conversations I had, was that multi-million dollar genius-level projects fail over trivial things.
But the takeaway, and that became a commonality among all the conversations I had, was that multi-million dollar genius-level projects fail over trivial things.
Another visit was to a company that builds catastrophe response systems for zero-tolerance environments (airports, nuclear power plants, etc.) including the huge monitor banks. This is where I got sat down and got a free high-intensity lesson on crisis response protocols.
Unlike fires on an oil rig, Forrester shocks in a supply chain unfold in slow motion, over a couple of weeks. This is exactly what we're seeing now. This means the information cascade unfolds in slow motion too and it can be traced running thru the system.
One of the lessons learned was that it's extremely important to pay attention to data movement, data aggregation, and data synchronization. One position taking stock on Wednesday and the neighboring position on Friday can send a shock thru the system.
Warehousing systems and other "real-time" enterprise systems also aggregate information from multiple locations. This information also comes with a reporting lag. So if a system reports a stock of X for Thursday, this can reflect Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, depending on origin.
This is a big reason why I go down historical data rabbit holes and try to cross-compare reports over time to read out their reporting protocol and time lag that stems from it. Because this is the crux of the information crossfire we're in.
This thread was brought to you by the #BeigeAcademy of climbing down into the machine room of global commerce.
@threadreaderapp unroll plz
@threadreaderapp unroll plz
