Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

This week’s inspirational hot topic is the incredibly interesting supply chain management dilemma we all find ourselves in or affected by in the motorcycle industry. Welcome to Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management where we look at one company, URAL, who has overcome Moses like adversity. Logistics 101: Supply management is made up of five areas: supply planning, production planning, inventory planning, capacity planning, and distribution planning. The new reality is the worldwide supply chain continues to be affected by challenges relating to the pandemic, including delays, disruption and time needed for critical supply chain disruption management.

This is what URAL has had to do as their supply lines were cut in Irbit, Russia and the entire company had to move to Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan. All the necessary pieces of assembly equipment and filling warehouse shelves with parts and components were moved with massive trucks and additional equipment, hand tools, work benches, test stands, compressors, quality control “tunnel” and other pieces needed to be newly acquired.

On July 23rd, the first Ural was assembled at the new location in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan on July 23, 2022.

As Ural says “It’s a true milestone. We are humbled and grateful to the Ural community around the world for believing in us. Every word of support counts and fuels our team to keep on going. We are excited and determined to move forward, more than ever.”

The hills that matter most are the hardest ones to climb. How inspiring is that?

I was fortunate enough to ride a Ural and it’s as full of character as the people that build them.

Check out all the new 2023 Ural motorcycles as well as all the Ural models from 2006 to 2022 right here on Total Motorcycle. Support the good people at Ural like you support Total Motorcycle as in this, we are all inspirational hero’s.

Total Motorcycle would like to thank Ural as well as the hundreds of millions of motorcycle riders who visit TMW for inspiring us to bring you this week’s Inspiration Friday: Supply Chain Management. Each week we bring you another Inspiring Motorcycle story to inspire you to get out and ride!

Join Total Motorcycle here and help us by joining Total Motorcycle’s new YouTube Membership and $1/mo Patreon channels. Please help us help riders, support motorcyclists and motorcycling worldwide today.

 

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management
July 23, 2022: First Ural Assembled In Kazakhstan

We did it again! First Ural was assembled at the new location in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan on July 23, 2022.

It’s a true milestone. We are humbled and grateful to the Ural community around the world for believing in us. Every word of support counts and fuels our team to keep on going. We are excited and determined to move forward, more than ever.

Thank you!

The Team at Ural

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

July 22, 2022: Setting Up Assembly Stations, Parts Shelves, More Components Arrivals

It’s been a busy week in Petropavlovsk with set up, more deliveries of parts and components, couple hiccups at the customs but overall good round the clock work week. Our guys are putting in the sweat, the hours and a little bit of crazy – crazy dedication.

Assembly of the first bikes is about to start. Stand by for updates!

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

July 16, 2022: New Set Up in Kazakhstan – Almost Ready To Go

Latest Operations Update here:

The process of setting up our new assembly facility is very near completion (!) We are now in the last phase of the set up: bringing in the necessary pieces of assembly equipment and filling warehouse shelves with parts and components.

We’re moving some old (refurbished) assembly fixtures from Irbit, however most of the equipment, hand tools, work benches, test stands, compressors, quality control “tunnel” and other pieces are brand new.

The trial shipment of spare parts has successfully made its way from Kazakhstan to IMWA in Redmond. Factory is now putting together two large air shipments to fulfill backorders and warranties, and also gearing up to restore “normal” way of supplying parts to our distributors with the shipments of bikes.

We received the first two shipments of production parts from our Asian suppliers in Petropavlovsk last week. There are more production parts on their way to Kazakhstan from other Asian suppliers, as well as from Europe. We’re very close to completely restoring all incoming logistics.

Most importantly: the first truck with motorcycle assembly sets has arrived at IMZ-Kazakhstan from Irbit. We’re expecting the second shipment from Irbit to arrive in Kazakhstan next week. The team of workers from Irbit is going to Petropavlovsk to assist with the assembly of the first shipments of bikes in the next few days.

If everything goes well, we expect the first shipment of bikes from our new assembly shop to depart around July 25th. It will be heading to the US with ETA sometime early to mid-September. Following production orders are booked for Japan, Australia and Europe.

Wish us luck and follow us on social media channels for updates.

We thank you for being there for us, stay tuned for more developments!

Ride safe and be well!

The Team at Ural

 

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

5 ways the pandemic has changed the supply chain

  1. Supply chain now a key focus of the C-suite
  2. Business continuity more important than costs
  3. Buyer-supplier relations have been altered
  4. Supply chain workarounds are now standard
  5. The inventory playbook has been ripped up

In other industries built on lean inventories, there is a debate about whether we are seeing a permanent strategy change towards larger inventory and more safety stock, or a temporary one that is necessary because of higher sales.

The Reuters report suggests that more companies are prepared to implement aggressive continuous replenishment programmes and automate more of their ordering to avoid getting caught flatfooted without sufficient stocks down the road.

What’s clear is that nearly two years after the world first learned of “the new flu” the supply chain is still experiencing an unfortunate series of firsts – a historic level of carrier unreliability, record high freight rates, all-time low warehouse vacancies and more.

It will pass. When it does, look for a more intelligent supply chain.

 

Inspiration Friday #209: Supply Chain Management

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