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Optimization is all around: Replacing a dishwasher

AUGUST 21, 2018
Optimization is all around: Replacing a dishwasher
Author: Alfred den Besten

Every once in a while home appliances break down, if you’re lucky they can be repaired. If not, they need to be replaced. Recently – just my luck – my dishwasher broke down and needed to be replaced. Although my parents until recently had no dishwasher, I’m of the “dishwasher generation” – and thus the need for speed in urgently finding a replacement unit.

The first step, of course, was to go online and conduct a search to find the best dishwasher, at the best price, with installation service (so the machine could be delivered and installed “yesterday”). Silly me, I made the “best price” variable as the most important factor in my decision. One might wonder: Why didn’t you combine all the decision variables and make a balanced, optimized decision? Well, hindsight is 20/20, but in that moment, I made the best possible decision that I could – putting much more weight on one variable (best price) and making my decision on which dishwasher to buy based on that. In retrospect, I should have given the other decision variables (such as quality and service) more weight and made a truly optimized purchasing decision.

Supply chain breakdown

But this blog is not only about my problem with optimized decision making, but also about bigger supply chain issues – namely, sub-par delivery performance and customer service. So what happened next after I placed the order online?

It seemed that the dishwasher I ordered online was, at almost the same time, ordered by at least 10 other customers. Unfortunately, the supply chain solution couldn’t handle a “good marketing action” that resulted in a significant spike in order volumes in a short timeframe, and the logistics process started to collapse.

A nice extra “feature” of the dishwasher I ordered was the fact that I could also order installation service at a reasonable price in the same “shopping basket”. Again, as a result of a surge in demand, the installation agency was fully booked for the next few weeks. Synchronization of sales and installation services was far from optimal.

To make a long story short, here’s a summary of the events that followed:

The bottom line

Looking back on this somewhat painful customer experience, I realize that it was primarily the result of the complete lack of integration and synchronization in the supply chain of the dishwasher supplier – a very well-known German home appliances and technology retailer.

If you would like to see ICRON in action, please contact us. If you have enjoyed this blog, you can find more content that you might enjoy here.

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