Author Archive for Robert Yokl
Employing Value Analysis Analytics to Get Your Way
Using stats, figures or value analysis analytics to garner support for your supply chain ideas or initiatives should be a first, not a last tactic, to get your way in the supply chain business. Why? Stats, figures or analytics resonate better with busy people than just lofty words or general information! For instance, if we [...]
It isn’t Easy to Admit that Change is Needed
Acknowledging the necessity for change isn’t easy, but it is the first step in moving forward to new horizons. This is especially important in the supply chain business since, as Bob Dyan would say, “The times they are changing” and you need to change with them. I recently talked to one of our clients who [...]
Hospital Cost-Cutting focus Shifts to Utilization
I think that most hospital executives are getting it that under healthcare reform many organizations will need to reduce their overall operating expenses by 15% – 20% (or, about five-percent below the Medicare rates you are receiving now) with supply chain expected to be a major contributor. The other big “aha” that is hitting home [...]
I Can’t Find My Keys: Can you relate this to value analysis?
I think just about everyone has experienced not being able to find their keys only to have another person come along without hesitation to find their keys sitting almost directly in their view. How did they see our keys and we didn’t? Well, sometimes you get so used to seeing what’s right in front of [...]
Pay-For-Performance: Supply Chain Case Study
As you may know from my recent articles, I’m a big proponent of Pay-For-Performance as it relates to the supply chain since, in my opinion, it’s really is a perfect fit. So much so, that I predict that it will be a best practice in just a few years. In fact, I’m seeing more and [...]
Who’s Minding Your Supply Chain Store?
We were doing a little research for a Podcast we are planning, so we decided to review our Ultimate Value Analysis Program to see what had changed since we first published this course a few years ago. To our absolute amazement 97% of the real-life illustrations and examples that were given in our course material [...]
Value Analysis is a Never-Ending Job
There are times when we might think that we have cut all of the unnecessary and unwanted cost that is imaginable in a particular product line (e.g., pacemakers, oxisensors, orthopedics, wound care, etc.) and that our job is done as a value analysis practitioner. Nothing could be further than the truth! In fact, value analysis [...]
Mission Possible: Building Service Expertise
We're hearing a lot of buzz in the supply chain community that the next big challenge (next to utilization management) for supply chain professionals is the management and control of their purchase service contracts. While this is a commendable undertaking from our point of view, we have a word of caution for those taking this [...]
Are you Recognizing your Overachievers?
We often talk to our clients about the power of a rewards and recognition program for their value analysis team members, but our ideas unusually fall on deaf ears. This is always disappointing to us since we know, from industry studies and our own personal experience, that recognition is one of the most powerful human [...]
Control Plan: A Value Analysis Imperative
There is a tendency in value analysis circles to consider a value analysis project completed when its project manager says it is completed, which to us this rationale is lacking in specificity, accountability and comprehensiveness. It just doesn’t hold water! From our point of view, a successful value analysis project isn’t complete until all elements [...]
