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In lugnet.lego, Mike Kollross wrote:
> In lugnet.lego, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
> > Wow, the new CEO is only
> > <http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/LEGOAboutUs-PressReleases/otherfiles/2057/upload7A6EF65A-234F-4E59-99B4-9DA9F7B94C81.pdf
> > 35 years old> - he was 8 or 9 when Space came out!
> >
> > Good luck to Mr. Knudstorp!
> > Marc Nelson Jr.
>
> He's AFOL age. (average age being 30 ish, not based on any real numbers, just
> an observation) and probably remembers classic space as a kid. Good news!!!!
But does he LIKE the product, or is this just a job for him? Ditto the CFO... I
have opined in the past that I wonder how many Danes view working at LEGO as
just another job rather than as a passion....
Also, I have to say I was puzzled by this previous release in the context of the
new release:
http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pressdetail&contentid=9062&countrycode=2057&yearcode=2004&archive=true
(April: a new Senior VP, Patrick Bogaers, for Supply Chain is appointed,
replacing the old one)
But Patrick Bogaers is not listed as the Senior VP for Supply Chain in the new
announcement!!! That is now Lars Altemark. No statement of why, of course,
that's not typically done.
Note this statement from the release:
" During the second half of the year a small proportion of European sales was
adversely affected by supply problems involving the Company’s best selling
products – but this situation is expected to be brought under control during the
coming weeks. "
As I have opined many many times here and elsewhere, supply chain management,
product lifecycle management, accurate and geography specific demand
forecasting, and nimble reaction to changes in demand are absolutely vital in
todays day and age.
I'd opine that LEGO *still* doesn't have this right. Third supply chain VP in a
year, acknowledgement of supply chain problems, acknowledgement of overcapacity
coupled with inability to meet demand... not good. Lots of room for improvement.
Consider this from a recent Information Week:
(it's a long article about various Walmart IT initiatives, a really good read if
you care about this stuff even if IW is a free magazine)
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=47902662
"Today, Wal-Mart captures all the day's sales and product data across its global
operations on an hourly basis. Database queries can start running as soon as
data is available. That ability comes in handy, particularly on the Friday after
Thanksgiving, when Wal-Mart buyers start watching what's happening in stores at
6 a.m. on the East Coast, then use that data to make decisions in real time that
can affect the big day's sales. Wal-Mart once used its data prowess on a Black
Friday to query sales of a PC advertised in a circular; when execs found out it
wasn't selling well, they called stores and discovered the reason was that
customers thought they had to pay separately for the system and monitor. So
store clerks quickly put the two boxes together and spelled out the
pay-one-price deal in a sign. "We've done a lot of work for performance and
availability, and making sure the data is current," Phillips says."
Now, Walmart is a retailer not a manufacturer. But note that they track demand
on an hourly basis and react instantly.(1) How often does LEGO track demand?
Walmart encourages their suppliers to colocate in AR for efficiency, either the
warehouses or the manufacturing itself.
Contrast that with LEGO. LEGO chose to centralise manufacturing and uses sea
shipping to reach US and Asian markets. How could they possibly react quickly?
Closing Enfield molding and manufacturing in my view was a penny wise, pound
foolish decision. Molds can be sent by air! But product can't economically be...
They've lost the ability to react to North America demand changes in days
instead of weeks.
XFUT out of .general to just lugnet.lego
++Lar
1 - Ascential products may or may not be part of how they get this done... I
couldn't officially say. But suffice it to say that we can load and unload
Teradata databases faster than anyone else (since we exploit native parallel I/O
capabilities) and WalMart is a *huge* TeraData installation. You connect the
dots. It's either us or Informatica.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Lego changes CEO after new losses
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| (...) Absolutely agree. (...) I'm not sure how much of the problem is a 'TLC supply chain issue' tho. Perhaps it is in EU where the supplier is more closely coupled with the retail outlets. On this side of the pond I have seen much LEGO product that (...) (20 years ago, 21-Oct-04, to lugnet.lego)
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