Leading a Supply Chain Turnaround领导供应链周转Five years ago, salespeople at Whirlpool said the company's supply chain staff were "sales disablers." Now, Whirlpool excels at getting the right product to the right place at the right time-while keeping inventory low. What made the difference?五年前，在Whirlpool的销售人员表示，该公司的供应链的工作人员“销售残疾人”。
但是现在，Whirlpool擅长将正确的产品销售在正确的地方在正确的时间，同时保持低库存。
是什么产生了这样的区别？Things would be very different today-for me, my colleagues, and my company- if the votes of Whirlpool's North American leadership team had swung in a different direction on May 3, 2001. It was a move I hadn't expected; Mike Todman, our executive vice president at the time, decided to go around the table and ask each member of his staff for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the investment that Paul Dittmann and I had just formally proposed. Did I look worried? I can't imagine I didn't, even though we'd spent hours in individual meetings with each of them, getting their ideas and buy-in. We thought we had everyone's support. But the facts remained: Our proposal had a bigger price tag than any supply chain investment in the company's history. We were asking for tens of millions during a period of general belt-tightening. Some of it was slated for new hires, even as cutbacks were taking place elsewhere in the company. And Paul and I, the people doing the asking, were coming from the supply chain organization.如果惠而浦在北美的领导团队在5月3日，2001年投票朝向不同的方向上，那么今天，对我来说，我的同事，我的公司，事情变得非常不同的。
这是我没想到的举动：我们当时的执行副总裁，迈克·托德曼，围着桌子要求他的每个工作人员的表决保罗和我提出了投资方案。
难道我当时看起来很担心？我想应该是的，即使我们花了时间与他们每个人单独会议去寻求他们的意见和补充。
我们认为我们得到了大家的支持。
但事实仍然是：我们的建议有比公司历史上任何供应链的投资有更大的价格标签。
在困难时期我们正在寻求上千万的资金。
其中一些给新员工，甚至削减了公司诸多方面的开支。
而申请资金的的保罗和我是公司供应链组织人员。
Let me be clear: The supply chain organization was the part of the business that Whirlpool's salespeople were in the habit of calling the "sales disablers" in 2000. We were perpetually behind the eight ball, tying up too much capital in finished goods inventory- yet failing to provide the product availability our customers needed. Our availability hovered around 87%. Our colleagues grimly joked that in surveys on the delivery performance of the four biggest appliance manufacturers in the U.S., we came in fifth.要明确指出：供应链组织业务是曾被惠尔浦的销售人员在2000年的习惯称为“销售残疾人”的。
我们永远捆绑太多资金在成品库存中，但未能提供一种使得产品能够有效满足客户需要可行性。
我们的可利用率徘徊在87％。
我们的同事们严肃地开玩笑说，在在美国四个最大的家电制造商的交货业绩调查中，我们排在第五。
And here, with all the credibility that track record conferred on us, we were proposing an ambitious new suite of IT solutions- something, too, for which the company had little appetite. It had been just 20 months since Whirlpool North America had flipped the switch on a massive new ERP system, with less than desired effect. Normally, Whirlpool ships close to 70,000 appliances a day to North American customers. The day after we went live with SAP, we were able to ship about 2,000. A barrage of bad press followed. Even though the situation was soon righted (SAP remains a valued partner), the experience of being treated as a sort of poster child for ERP folly had left scars.在这里，根据过去我们的信誉，我们雄心勃勃的提出了一项在公司没有什么兴趣的新套件It解决方案 .已经有20个月以来,惠而浦北美在翻转交换机上运用了一个巨大的新的ERP系统，但达不到不到预期的效果。
通常情况下，惠而浦产出70000器械供给北美客户。
与SAP合作后，我们能够出货约2,000。
负面报道的攻势接踵而至。
尽管这种情况很快就被纠正（SAP仍是一个有价值的合作伙伴），但是采用ERP系统的愚行为被视为典范愚蠢的经历给我们留下疤痕So imagine our relief when we heard the first voice say "yes" It was the executive who headed up sales to Sears. Paul and I looked anxiously to the next face, and the next. The heads of our KitchenAid, Whirlpool, and value brands followed suit-a watershed, given that the funding would have to come from their budgets. I could see that J.C. Anderson, my boss and senior vice president of operations, was happy, too. He had tried to voice his support at the beginning of the meeting, but Mike Todman had asked him to wait. Now that it was his turn to vote, he did it with a flourish: "I am fully committed" he said, "to moving our supply chain from a liability to a recognized competitive advantage." Only after Todman had heard from everyone in the room-brands, sales, finance, human resources, and operations- did he cast his vote.当我们听到第一个肯定的声音的时候那是一种解脱，就是执行官同意向Sears销售。
我们焦虑的期待剩下的人的同意。
我们KitchenAid惠而浦的领导人们，以及价值品牌的负责人纷纷效仿，因为资金必须来自自己的预算。
我看得出来，JC安德森，我的老板和运营的高级副总裁也是开心的。
他曾试图表达他支持的意见在会议的开始的时候，但是迈克·托德曼要求他等一等。
现在，轮到他投票，他做了一个成分肯定的表态说：“我完全致力于将我们的供应链从一个累赘变为公认有竞争力的优势。
”在托德曼听了在房间里品牌，销售，财务，人力资源和操作的发言后，他投了票。