The Cynical Sorcerer Comes Out of His Shell
Perhaps not yet ready to stop celebrating US independence, the elusive Tony Poshek, the inventor of The Puddy Principle to Strategic Sourcing, and our very own Cynical Sorcer(er), has decided to stop throwing us bloggers scraps and yesterday, for the first time, offered us a glimpse into the mind of the manic marauder with his inaugural post on Spend Matters that lamented the cruel fate that may yet befall the Paris' Pup.
The post, which lamented the recent run of bad luck to befall our eastern exchange partner, whose citizens have apparently just discovered Weird Al's 1985 hit Dare to Be Stupid and decided to add a verse or two of their own:
Put down your Mobal and listen to me
It's time for us to join in the trade
It's time to let our babies to grow up to be cowboys
It's time to remove the blockade
It's time to make diethylene glycol toothpaste
It's time to paint our toy trains with lead
It's time to lace pet food with melamine
It's time to leave the gum out of the tread ...
points out that as simultaneously entertaining and terrifying as the referenced stories are, the most interesting ones are the smaller stories that deal with consumers actually trying to boycott products from China, such as How one woman said 'No' to Chinese imports and U.S. family tries living without China.
All I can say is that I hope we see more posts in the future. He's no Spend Fool (but then again, who is?), but his swift style is scandalously satirical, and that's a breath of Chicago air we all need once and again.
There sure has been a lot of spectacular sourcing failures in China recently. I wish I was a fly on the wall when those companies made their sourcing decisions.
The major computer companies who would only buy from foreign-invested companies (subsidiaries and joint ventures of non-Chinese companies) in China are looking more and more prescient.
And now you know why I did my recent post on Informance (http://www.informance.com/), one of the few companies I have found that tackles the increasingly important subject area of Manufacturing Performance Management. If you're not managing your plants and contract manufacturers, you're probably losing out on efficiency, cost, and / or quality - if not all three. Good sourcing goes beyond just identifying the supplier, but helps engineering and product management manage and work with the supplier.
The only other specialty vendors I was able to find, after a web search and a few discussions, that advertise the same capabilities are Silvon (http://www.silvon.com/), Iconics (http://www.iconics.com/), ActivPlant (http://www.activplant.com/), and Incuity (http://www.incuity.com/).
I'm not sure a performance management system is the solution here. The common thread through all these problems is that (and I have to admit I'm just hoping this is true) the supplier produced good product at the start and then changed the process.
I can't think of a substitute for looking the supplier's honcho or honcha straight in the eye, asking probing questions, and determining if his or her company has internalized the need and has the processes in place to get customer approval for process changes.
That's not something a consumer products company should delegate to a third party either.