Comments on: Home Depot: Overhauling the supply chain

By: SwizStick

SwizStick — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:25:25 +0000

Why not do both? Keep your customers happy and implement cost savings initiatives!

By: Colleen Raye

Colleen Raye — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:41:05 +0000

Too many power hungry egos get in the way of getting the job done. Why is it that the shopper has been ignored for years when this is who is making the company successful. Pulling staff from the store floors years ago was an obvious mistake. but common sense gets lost startiing at top management and working its way down through the department heads whose egos are too big to just get the job done! Get rid of some of the bottle-neck management people and silly programs/systems or as you call them “initiatives” that tend to lose site of the big picture, and hire the experts at the store level to assist your customers! Just do it!

By: 3plwire

3plwire — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:51:44 +0000

Sounds like there are a number of issues affecting Home Depot’s supply chain, but the fact that Home Depot is the single largest LTL shipper in the U.S. is a pretty big one that shouldn’t be discounted. Inventory Management needs to be improved and LTL should be used at an absolute minimum. It’s a fact that FTL loads are more cost effective than LTL, so don’t discount it. Significant cost savings can be achieved by simply improving trailer and container load volume utilization.

By: Gerard C

Gerard C — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:03:12 +0000

I work for Home Depot and we have been complaining about this for years. Bob Nardelli was a complete disaster for Home Depot. He built too many redundant stores (we have 3 within 5 miles, and 10 within 20 miles, not too mention the other hardware stores. When he left he had plans to build 2 more in the same area) Further he moved everything over to auto ship. We now get huge over-supplies of things we don’t sell and have shortages of things we sell all the time. Frankly my store is not in disarray. You have here several problems. Too much management control. Managers rarely stay at any store more than 2 years, so they have no real knowledge of what they need in the store. But of course when managers do stay at one place for too long they start building fiefdoms, and surround themselves with yes men and brown nosers. HD has been working on a plan to phase out its IMA (inventory management associates) by getting rid of their duties and making them onverglorified price changers. Since the ordering has shifted away from the IMAs to computer programs we have more and more shortages, and more and more excesses). Managers on the other hand can always override the system and place orders, but in practice they have too much other work, and are not really qualified to know what is needed in any particular department. They tend to rely on sales staff to give them lists, but these people are dealing with customers and don’t have the time to make correct decisions. The best way is to have experts in the department make the ordering decisions instead of computers which really cannot decern the difference between weeks and events. One year we have flooding so we ordfer a huge supply of sump pumps and sell them all off. That same week the following year, the computers auto ship the same amount (this time they are late because the flooding happened 3 weeks earlier) and we lost the sales and were stuck with a years supply that sat on the shelves). Auto replenishment and remote purchasing decisions are the problem. (not partially full trucks). If we don’t have the merchandise then we have to do a transfer with another store. There is nothing more ineffeceient than having to spend money shipping one hammer, a paket of bolts, from one place to another via UPS or having a manager drive it over.