Imagine you’re a hotshot US high school basketball player during the late 1960’s. You’re all American and can pretty much choose any collegiate program you want, with an almost for certain scholarship attached and a better than decent chance that someday you’ll play professionally in the NBA.
You finally decide to join the famed UCLA program, under the tutelage of the acclaimed John Wooden, aptly named The Wizard of Westwood – an eventual winner of 10 NCAA titles in 12 seasons, including a still record 7 in a row.
I think it’s safe to say you’d be both nervous and excited.
First practice day arrives and you’re intrigued to see what you’ll learn from the Wizard. What techniques does he employ? What’s his secret sauce? How has he been so successful?
Wooden arrives, promptly introduces himself and his staff and new recruits begin to practice a drill that Wooden starts every season with…
…learning to put on your socks and tie your laces.
Astonished, your first practice with the top program in the country would include practicing, over and over, how to put on your socks and tie your shoe laces.
John Wooden understood how important fundamentals are. If the players got blisters from their socks or improperly laced shoes, they wouldn’t be able to move as well. If they couldn’t move as well, they couldn’t rebound or shoot as well and they’d miss shots. And if they missed rebounds and shots, they’d lose.
Master the fundamentals, Wooden realized, and the team would excel.
It’s impressive thinking and very insightful for all us working in supply chain planning.
Flowcasting is based on fundamentals. I remember talking recently to an Executive from a technology-focused and hyped firm who proclaimed to me, “Flowcasting is not new or innovative”. After all he proclaimed, “the concept has been around for more than 15 years and the book is 12 years old”.
Ok, so what’s that got to do with anything? Does something have to be new, exciting and, to date, unproven to add value? I think not and I know you do too.
Flowcasting is based on sound fundamentals that will stand the test of time. A forecast of consumer demand, at customer touchpoint only, is used to calculate and translate that only unknown into all resource requirements in the extended retail supply chain (or any industrial supply chain).
Joe Orlicky, one of the Godfathers of time-phased planning, MRP and DRP, said it best, almost 50 years ago when he proclaimed ”Never forecast what you can calculate”.
I’ve never met Dr. Orlicky or Dr. Wooden but I believe that they are kindred spirits. They understood the power and importance of fundamentals.
Now you do too.