Home Depot Tackles A Supply Chain That Doesn’t Recognize Geography
Written by Evan SchumanOctober 14th, 2008
The new Home Depot CEO is trying to tackle the chain’s supply chain challenge, which he pegged mostly as a regional issue. “The systems were very poorly adjusted to reflect differences in locales,” said CEO Frank Blake. “We are the single-largest less-than-truckload shipper in the United States. A lot of trucks are going to stores that aren’t full. It’s not efficient.”
In a wonderful profile in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the story illustrates the bottom-line impact of even the smallest supply chain adjustment, pointing out that, for Home Depot, “one-tenth improvement in turning over inventory equals about $150 million in cash.” Definitely worth a read.