Supply Chain Academy - extracting the real value from training and staff development
Julian Mosquera and Richard Renshaw explain how LCP has applied its SUPPLY CHAIN ACADEMY (SCA) development philosophy with a chemicals manufacturer, to align the wider organisation with the corporate strategy, generating operating cost savings of over one million dollars in the process.
Putting a value on training has been a challenge for HR professionals even though companies regularly complain about lack of skills and profess that staff are their most valuable asset.
Most multi-national companies also face a communication gap, making it difficult for middle managers to see how actions they and their teams take contribute directly to achieving strategic goals.
In many cases the senior team feels they are too few to implement the strategy, and that a skills and knowledge gap exists, which makes it difficult to steer geographically dispersed teams to meet the same corporate goals.
Our philosophy
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Our philosophy is to deliver practical training, with exercises and case studies drawn from the business. With a strong emphasis on post module projects, we are able to unlock business improvements and enable middle management to act in line with the corporate strategy.
For training to be effective, skills gaps need to be identified and owners appointed to oversee each of the skills area. This drives the core areas of focus for the SCA syllabus.
The resulting
Supply Chain Academy
LCP applies an 8 point framework to guide programme development:
1. STRATEGY CASCADE – enable the business strategy to be clearly and consistently cascaded down to local business units; translation of global requirements to local actions and identify key operational focus areas, to which training themes are aligned. As strategy evolves so should the SCA
2. TARGETED SYLLABUS – topics selection and structure to address the skills gaps; bundled to form coherent cost effective modules capable of repetitive global delivery
3. COURSE DESIGN – enabling the most effective learning through utilising appropriate delivery mechanisms: briefing packs; computer based (CBT) and e-learning; highly interactive trainer led courses that reference the corporate strategy and leverage company specific case studies
4. DELEGATE SELECTION – optimising the opportunities from the talent pool, getting the right people selected, helping employee development, contribution and retention
5. VALUE GENERATING MECHANISM – training should contribute to strategic objectives and add shareholder value. The SCA approach incorporates value added projects, building on specific elements of the syllabus as each module is delivered, which are assessed by the SCA governance team
6. TRAINING MEASUREMENT AND FEEDBACK – feedback and assessment of module delivery and quality; course alignment with delegate capability and experience; quality of delegate project and applied learning is assessed over a longer timescale in the work place, measured in terms of business benefit release
7. TRANSPARENT GOVERNANCE – SCA requires a programme ownership and structure to ensure that the SCA is delivered consistently across all business units, remains relevant and that value is being added
8. SUPPLY SELECTION – the SCA may require multiple sources of training delivery including – internal resources, external training specialists, literature selection, e-learning portals etc., the careful selection of which will be critical to achieving overall programme success.
SCA Case Study
A recent SCA case study with Huntsman Chemicals indicates how the client perceived value generation.
Renaud Bein from Huntsman Global Human Resources said:
“Our customers’ expectations continue to rise and our competition never sleeps. We want to grow our business; we want to unlock ideas and suggestions from every level of the organisation. The SCTP (Supply Chain Training Programme) will enable us to do this effectively”
The ‘Governance’ team was set up with every member of the global supply chain leadership team insisting they were on it. This was a great message reinforcing the importance for the delegates but also ensuring strategic gaps were attacked and that there was discipline around value generation.
The modules were tailored to the governance teams’ requirements with a broad syllabus covering Customer Service, Supply Chain Management and Planning, and Lean Operations.
LCP helped develop the overall SCTP governance structure and delivered the first 2 modules, focused on improving supply chain management knowledge and skills globally.
‘80 delegates trained in Europe, North America and
A project based training ethos has been applied with each delegate completing a small value generating project, as well as completing the course, to secure their Huntsman/LCP module certificates.
“The scale of benefit through such a focused effort has been something of a revelation, in excess of $1m in the first year of undertaking!”