Alain Fercoq (Arts & Métiers): 'MRP and Demand Driven are complementary, not opposed'

Alain Fercoq is an expert in Operational Excellence, associate within the SpinPart consulting firm and director of the MPI Master's Degree – Management of Industrial Performance – at Arts & Métiers. He talks to us about several significant evolutions in Operational Excellence and Supply Chain, notably the rise of the Demand Driven method, which is the basis of the BEVOLTA software.

— You've been managing the specialized MPI Master's Degree – Manager of Industrial Performance – at Arts & Métiers for nearly 10 years, what do young people seek in this training?

This is a specialized Master's degree in continuing education primarily aimed at students with a level equivalent to a Bachelor's degree plus 5, who want to specialize, 80% of whom come from engineering courses. There are also professionals who wish to specialize after a minimum of 5 years of experience, such as military personnel with experience in military logistics who want to deepen their Supply Chain expertise.

The trainees are attracted by the dual approach of Operational Excellence / Supply Chain fundamentals, which provides a good understanding of the entire value chain, allowing them to later aim for cross-functional management positions oriented toward performance and process improvement, for example, at the head of industrial performance. In the current economic context, these roles are more strategic than ever.

— Can you tell us a few words about the concept of Operational Excellence?

Operational Excellence aims to help the company develop its competitiveness by seeking to optimize its value creation in relation to its clients and market. Behind this notion is the idea of eliminating everything that does not add value across the entire value chain of the company. Competitiveness is developed by contributing to increasing revenue and more broadly to economic performance.

Another key aspect of Operational Excellence is working on the organizational dimension, through responsibility, mobilization, and motivation of different actors. By working on this human dimension, the idea is to make employees more motivated and broadly more employable.

Finally, through Operational Excellence, we aim to continuously improve practices; it’s an endless cycle. There is a truly cultural aspect in this simplification of all processes. These approaches call upon Lean Management methods and the Six Sigma approach, which aim to improve performance in terms of process variability. This integrates digital dimensions and increasingly environmental performance through Lean Green integration.

— There is indeed a lot of talk about digital transition in your programs, what about the environmental aspect?

There have been two main innovations integrated in the past ten years. The digital dimension serving the improvement of operational performance on the one hand, and a "Lean Green" dimension on the other, which aims to improve performance in the environmental sense. This aspect is particularly dear to me since I became interested in CSR ten years ago when I decided to undertake a doctoral thesis on the integration of lean and green. I defended this thesis in 2014, focusing on material efficiency and waste issues. Then in 2022, I initiated work on transposing the notion of material efficiency to energy efficiency – we are in current affairs – with methodological approaches that improve performance from an energy perspective. It’s indeed a component that is growing and becoming essential.

We also create openings by offering students cycles of conferences to deepen these current topics. It’s within this framework that I co-created a professional group – a body within the Society of Engineers of Arts & Métiers – on the theme of Sustainable Development and CSR.

— Does your program address the new Demand Driven methodology in leading and optimizing the supply chain, derived notably from Lean?

Absolutely, we must be up to date with innovative new methodologies. Stefan Krusselmann from the SpinPart firm presents an introduction to DDMRP – Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning – a theme that was integrated into the course four years ago.

— This new vision that focuses on real demand with pulled flows, is it not likely to become widespread – or even to supplant the classical MRP approach – in the volatile and uncertain context marking our era?

For supply chain management, I think we cannot oppose the two approaches MRP and DDMRP, as we need to have visibility on a more or less long-term horizon through S&OP – Sales & Operations Planning – up to three years or even beyond. I think particularly of certain sectors like the aerospace industry, where one must be able to forecast with capacity adjustment according to load forecasts.

On shorter-term horizons, however, we must now be more in a mode of tight, dynamic adjustment; this is extremely important. In this sense, the logic of DDMRP is really relevant, with a mix of pulled flow and visual performance management. The approach is also very integrative concerning fundamental aspects like the positioning of decoupling stocks. In my view, it complements classic planning, but this complementarity needs to be built.

The Demand Driven approach is clearly among the innovations we are interested in at Arts & Métiers. The professional group Operational Excellence and Supply Chain chaired by Robert Canonne, who has been following these long-standing supply chain optimization subjects – he taught Kanban at Arts & Métiers 40 years ago – even organized a conference on DDMRP eight years ago. We will certainly have the opportunity to discuss it further given the success of this new vision.

Remarks collected by Ghislain Journé.