INVEST IN AGILITY
Investments that boost an SMB’s agility and allow it to quickly respond to customers can pay off. “Agility is where SMBs can differentiate,” says Peter Bolstorff, executive vice president of the Association for Supply Chain Management, a trade group.
Consider Artaic, a Boston company that designs and fabricates custom tilework, creating mosaics from glass, porcelain, and stone. The best tile materials come from various locations worldwide; little is produced in the United States. Artaic’s supply chain extends to about one dozen suppliers on three continents.
At the same time, shorter lead times help Artaic win business. However, every project is custom, eliminating inherent predictability in the company’s tile consumption. “Since our supply chain is global, inbound shipments can easily take three months including production times and sea freight transport,” says Ted Acworth, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Artaic. Given the tiles’ weight, air freight tends to be cost prohibitive.
To achieve four- to eight-week lead times, Artaic worked with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for four years to develop a predictive inventory-ordering scheme. To help cover the cost, Artaic applied for and received a National Science Foundation Research grant, which helped support a Ph.D. student and faculty advisor.
With its new system, Artaic can order tile regularly, and before it sells its mosaics. Once a mosaic sells, Artaic likely will have all or most of the needed tile feedstock in house. “We’ve vastly increased our tile availability percentage, utilizing low cost and environmentally more favorable ocean shipping instead of air shipping,” Acworth says.
