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Supply Chain Engineering

NewVectors’ Supply Chain Engineering (SCE) Practice Area provides customers in government, defense, and commercial organizations with the tools to build resilient, customer-focused supply networks. We assist our customers in:

Supply Chain Risk

As firms seek to reduce inventory and lean out their processes, they become increasingly dependent on responsive suppliers that can provide goods and services just in time. Repeated case studies of disasters (natural and man-made) have shown that unprepared firms suffer large losses of production and market share if they have not adequately planned for disruption. NewVectors performs research, develops tools and assists our customer in putting effective supply chain risk reduction programs in place.


Robust, Lean Supply Networks (RLSN) is a comprehensive set of tools for identifying, assessing and mitigating supply chain risks. RLSN provided tools to model and simulate supply chains and study their response to surge and interruption and to wargame proposed mitigation and recovery strategies. RLSN provides a solid basis for an effective supply chain risk management program. Each of the tools is based on experience gained from studying supply chain risks and recovery in leading defense and automotive enterprises.

Supply Chain Value Stream Management (SCVSM)

Lean manufacturing has brought a new level of efficiency and productivity to US and global manufacturing by providing a framework for identifying waste and capturing and reusing valuable knowledge to improve manufacturing processes. Many in the engineering and business community have extended lean to non-manufacturing processes in the front office and the engineering department. In 2002 NewVectors (formerly Altarum), Boeing and a team of Boeing suppliers extended lean to the supply chain. The Supply Chain Value Stream Management project, funded in part by the Navy through the Supply-Chain Practices for Affordable Navy Systems (SPANS) program, developed a way to apply lean thinking to the management of complex supply chains. The project focused on a portion of the F/A-18 E&F supply chain and applied lean practices to the management of that supply chain. SCVSM focuses on business that span one or more companies in a supply chain and seeks to identify waste in the hand-offs from one company to another as raw materials are converted to finished goods. The SCVSM project produced dramatic results. Inventory across the supply chain was reduced by 20% and leadtimes were reduced by 23%. More, these metrics continue to improve and greater saving are projected as more of the lean roadmap is implemented. Other benefits included: greater understanding by all of the firms involved of the strengths and opportunities in the team for improvement; participation in this project encouraged management to continue the lean journey; communication across the supply chain was greatly improved; and, the team as a whole was able to confidently sign up for additional improvements to help meet Boeing targets for the F18.


Supply Chain Modeling and Simulation

As supply chain managers seek to eliminate inventory and cycle time from supply processes, the dynamics of the supply system become the limiting factor in improving the performance of supply chains. NewVectors has developed the Supply Network Analysis Program (SNAP) tool kit to identify modes of response in supply chains and to analyze different strategies for improving response. The SNAP toolkit is based on a fine-grained agent model of all of the production, logistics, control and information elements in a supply chain. The SNAP model supports sensitivity and optimal performance studies. The SNAP model is based on the popular and familiar Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR ™) model of supply chain operations. SNAP has been used successfully in a wide range of supply chain studies in the automotive and shipbuilding industries.


Cross-Organizational Change Management

For 15 years, the supply chain engineering team at NewVectors has used industry pilots and effective cross-organizational change management practices to demonstrate the effectiveness of new supply chain management practices and tools. We have piloted innovations in electronic commerce, supply chain integration, and product engineering, all in a supply chain context. Out of our work and our research we have developed a body of practice for effective change management in complex organizational settings such as supply chains.


Cross-Organizational Change Management is emerging as a key issue for both the Supply Chain Management and Defense Business Modernization as both of these areas respond to the challenges of transformation in the defense department. NewVectors has developed The COCM tool kit to provide our customers with the capabilities to quickly assess and respond to issues of change management in complex organization and in situations where change affects teams or groups of organizations that span the boundaries between customer and supplier. COCM includes a change process and a series of assessments, scenarios and protocols to address a broad range of planning, governance and change management issues that commonly occur in the process of effecting change in complex organizations.