We ordered some appliances for a new kitchen a few months ago. It was a heart warming experience of purchase and exchange - capitalism at its finest. The sales people were extraodinary - well trained and polished performers. The finance people were convivial and easy to get on with.
Then came the day when everything was supposed to arrive on site to be installed in the new kitchen. The plans had been agreed for weeks. The sales people phoned and explained what was going on, on a daily basis. It looked good. Very impressive. Three different stores, three trucks. All good.
We had kitchen people, electricians and plumbers lined up, we took time off work to be there. Then the first phone call came at 0800 on the day when it was all going to come together. The goods had missed the truck from the warehouse 200K away and would not arrive until the next day. We argued, wept, complained and begged - all to no avail. I even offered to drive to the warehouse myself - not possible - as the warehouse was in the hands of a third party outsourced logistics group.
Then the next truck arrived on time, with the wrong order on it. Small bits and pieces missing. The delivery docket was complete and the truck driver unapologetic - "mate, I can only deliver what they give me". A call to the store confirmed that the delivery docket and the sales docket did not match up. Nothing he could do about it. Back to the office and the store. Apologies all round, but no appliances on the day.
The final truck arrives amid all the shouting and tears. It is the driver from the in-house transport group of the last store, with the right goods and a friendly attitude. They were willing to help move things around the place, discussed the placement of the goods and generally were obviously related by positive attitude (if not by blood) to the sales people in the store.
The plumber and the electrican were in fits of laughter by lunchtime. "Happens all the time" they said. They simply packed up and said they would return the next day. They charged us for the day in any event.
I had forgotten what it means to be on the sharp end of the logistics supply chain as a customer and consumer. We talk much about the need to enhance our business processes and improve our national performance. We are usually talking about millions of tonnes of coal and iron ore. Exports to China. The movement of containers to Europe.
What about our domestic supply chains? What about our own local customers? Someone once said that "the difference between medocrity and excellence is painstaking attention to detail". Well, the individual retail customer is the "detail" in the supply chain. Believe me - I know.
I tracked the issues in my sad "last mile" case back to source. The problem was relatively simple. The sales person and the order person and the warehouse person and the delivery driver were all employed by different companies. Different ordering and tracking systems. No shared ICT systems. No way of checking that the items delivered were the ones actually ordered. If ever there was a case for collaborative systems - this was it.
The re-work and cost to the business of taking back the wrong orders and bringing back the right one was huge in relation to the overall cost of the order in the first place. It just showed up on different bottom lines. No-one was responsible for the whole supply chain. Not enough sharing of information along the chain. we lecture on it, we talk about it in workshops, and we keep getting it almost right. Perhaps in the next decade?