We’re glad to have Dr. Chris Norek, who I have known for some time, on board as a new columnist/blogger, and the focus he is bringing on small and medium, or so-called “mid-market," businesses (SMBs) is an interesting one.

As Chris notes in his introductory piece, by and large, small and medium businesses are mostly overlooked in supply chain articles, presentations, etc. (See Wanted: Supply Chain Strategies for Mid-Market Companies.)

Yet, of course, medium-sized businesses have many supply chain management opportunities. But why is so little attention paid to mid-market company supply chains in print and at conferences?

I had a discussion about this with our Gene Tyndall once. We sort of concluded to ourselves that the larger companies, in general, are the ones with more interesting and complex challenges, and/or more innovation, so their stories are just more appealing to the profession as a whole.

So, while SMBs have real opportunities for improvement internally, these opportunities are often at a more basic or less innovative level. So, the story is less interesting for most others to hear or read about, which is why not much is written or presented about them.

To take the most obvious example, if your network is very simple (1-2 plants, one DC, whatever), obviously, you don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about supply chain network optimization.

However, I will say clearly that we would be very interested here at SCDigest in examples of interesting/innovative supply chain strategies/tactics from SMBs. If you have such a story, please let me know at the Feedback button below.

One area where this can happen for sure is in distribution.

For example, our Materials Handling Editor Cliff Holste and I worked on a project 10 years ago at totes Isotoner, which was then about $300 million. But, all of that volume came out of one DC, with significant levels of piece picking. So, its DC was actually as complicated as all but the largest retailer and apparel DCs, and we implemented a very advanced/interesting solution there that actually led to some changes in the WMS and conveyor industry.

I have seen the same thing at other mid-sized companies that have all, or most, of their business going out of a single DC. Those processes and operations can be just as tough or tougher a challenge than a large company that splits up the volume across many DCs.

We actually have been trying to cover more areas of interest to SMBs ourselves. For example, we did a couple of pieces on Holste’s concept of the “Poor Man’s Sorter” for distribution, which is a potentially a great idea for medium-sized companies to gain some efficiencies in distribution. (See Is “Poor Man’s Sortation” System a Smart Answer for Smaller Distribution Centers?)

So, I think we can agree that the opportunities to gain great bottom-line benefits from supply chain improvement are there for many/most SMBs. Do they really drive much SCM innovation, or solve challenging problems from a big picture industry perspective?  Should the trade press and conference circuit pay more attention to their stories?

In distribution, I would often say Yes, for sure. I guess the same holds true for manufacturing as well – certainly, many smaller companies innovate there as well – in fact, it is often manufacturing innovation that defines the company or gets them going, not just product, but also process.

In other areas of the supply chain (transportation, inventory optimization, performance management, supply chain collaboration, etc.), I tend to say No, but there are exceptions.

If you have such a story, again we would love to hear it.