I had to chuckle today in our Supply Chain class.  You know that you are going to get a great story or dirty laundery when the professor asks if anyone from a certain organization is in the room. 

Luckily we didn't have anyone from Bogomax in our class (Bogomax = a very large defense contractor), so we heard how after they had won a major full-lifecycle contract to supply a weapons system they called in our professor as a consultant.  They have provided weapons and systems to Defense for decades, and had never in their history put together a network map to identify where the parts come from, where the production happens, and where the product is delievered.

Not to beat up Bogomax too much -- the Department of Defense had never gone through the procedure either.  (This must have been a long time ago -- I'm sure they have been doing it for a long time now.)

[ironically, this is the best example of a supply chain network map I could find on the web -- if you know a non-proprietary one, please let me know].

Sorry, this wasn't supposed to be about supply chain management... it was supposed to be about professor dishing dirt.  Whenever a new professor asks "Do we have any consultants in the class?" I no longer raise my hand -- I want to hear what they're going to say about consultants.  Sometimes my classmates expose me before the professor delivers the punch line, sometimes they wait until after the observation before they point an accusing finger my way (jokingly, of course).  It's all good fun.

Tags: consultants, gossip, class, fun