Building Strategic Value with Value Chain Management

We have three industry organizations that we want to tell you about, and then get you excited about the significant business value opportunity in working with us on a variety of Cannabis and Hemp value chain deals.

1. International Association of Cannabis + Hemp Value Chains™
2.  American Association of Cannabis + Hemp Value Chains™
3.  Canadian Association of Cannabis + Hemp Value Chains™

Understanding the C+H Value Chain Mission

Each of these organizations help your firm by increasing your industry visibility, respect and buzz that’s needed to be noticed by investors, venture capital firms and angel investors.

Cannabis Connect™ PNC Platform

This level of industry recognition and thought-leadership is needed to attract the best value chain partners, too. That’s where our Cannabis Connect™ service comes into play. The Cannabis Connect™ Professionals’ Networked Community (PNC) platform service helps your team and you to increase your overall enterprise and product brand visibility, recognition, significantly. We also help you boost your business thought-leadership and customer experience share of minds and hearts.

Mission-Critical Competencies:

·        Identification and execution of important C+H value chain deals.

·        Attract the attention of Venture Capital firms and Angel investors.

·        Find Board of Director mentors and business coaches.

·        Structure Strategic Partnerships and Co-Marketing Deals

·        Participate in Merger & Acquisition (M&A) discussions, assessments and venture deals.

·        Understand how your Governance, Risk and Compliance business disciplines attract investors and customers.

In essence, we help you to achieve an entirely new level of Cannabis & Hemp (i.e. C+H) Value Chain Excellence!

What is C+H Value Chain Excellence?

Cannabis & Hemp (C+H) Value Chain Excellence represents the hallmark of business management expertise and work management discipline which governs how we need to engineer, build, manage and sustain all legal C+H value chains around the world.

We monitor and manage...

1. Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
2. Key Risk Indicators (KRI's)
3. Key Compliance Indicators (KCI's)
4. Key Internal Control Indicators (KICI's)

We help our members achieve process excellence in an exceedingly complex business environment. We help them to configure value chains with complete control, coordination, communication and collaboration (4 C) practices with all our C+H value chain partners no matter whether they are strategic partners, joint ventures, M&A, joint deals, etc.

Our raid-paced and highly regulated business management processes are handled like any highly-regulated pharmaceutical enterprise.

We employ advanced Lean Six Sigma practices and tools which help us deal with the value chain challenges which members face. We also leverage Kata scientific thinking and decision-making and the “Drum-Buffer-Robe” Theory of Constraints systems engineering approach made world-renown for manufacturers by Eliyahu Goldblatt.

Our C+H Value Chains

We all deal with a rapid work pace and short-cycle relays (i.e. the restarting of new Cannabis and Hemp plants from cloning or tissue culturing practices and related problems at each handoff / juncture in our Cannabis and Hemp Value Chain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)…

1.   Indoor / Outdoor Cultivation

2.   Special Clean Room Processing

3.   CPG Branding

4.   Medicinal and Recreational Sales Dispensary

5.   Customer Experience Management and Oversight

Why are C+H value chains are so challenging?

One primary reason why Value Chain Management is so challenging is because many C+H companies need to contend with multiple manufacturing production “feeds & speeds”.

Our Cannabis and Hemp value chains are so challenging because of the variety of product strategies which are needed to optimize the production "feeds & speeds" based on these various manufacturing strategies, or methods:

·        “Ship-To-Stock” – A commonly employed production strategy used by Cannabis & Hemp cultivators to maximize stock.

·        “Engineer-To-Order” - A commonly employed production strategy used by Cannabis & Hemp processors to assess their market and product requirements as early in the design process as possible in order to provide product and services for Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPGs) Stock-Keeping Units (SKUs) to surprise and delight the customer.

·        “Configure-To-Order” - A commonly employed production strategy used by Cannabis & Hemp product design laboratories and processors They assess their market requirements as early in the design process as possible in order to provide product and services for Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPGs) Stock-Keeping Units (SKUs) which are capable of surprising and delighting the customer.

·        “Make-To-Order” -  A commonly employed production strategy used by Cannabis & Hemp processors (for both medicinal and recreational market channels) to minimize excess inventory for branded Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPGs) and Stock-Keeping Units (SKUs) held as inventory.

·        “Demand Pull” - A commonly employed production strategy used by Cannabis & Hemp retail sales dispensaries (for both medicinal and recreational market channels) to minimize excess inventory for branded Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPGs) and Stock-Keeping Units (SKUs).

Multiple Service Dimensions Need to Be Optimized

We use the well-proven five (5) Service Quality dimensions of the SERVQUAL “RATER” methodology to assess our Cannabis and Hemp operations against these business objectives:

1.   Responsiveness

2.   Assurance

3.   Tangibles

4.   Empathy

5.   Reliability

Applying the Principles

The five Lean principles provide a framework for creating an efficient and effective organization. Lean allows managers to discover inefficiencies in their organization and deliver better value to customers. The principles encourage creating better flow in work processes and developing a continuous improvement culture. By practicing all 5 principles, an organization can remain competitive, increase the value delivered to the customers, decrease the cost of doing business, and increase their profitability. 

We recommend that all Members leverage our value chain methodology which we have founded on lean principles and practices. Our 5-Step C+H Process lays out the key concepts below which come from Partner organizations such as The GEMBA Academy and The Lean Way. We thank them for their contributions to our International, American and Canadian Cannabis and Hemp Value Chain standards bodies.

1. Define Value

To better understand the first principle of defining customer value, it is important to understand what value is. Value is what the customer is willing to pay for. It is paramount to discover the actual or latent needs of the customer. Sometimes customers may not know what they want or are unable to articulate it. This is especially common when it comes to novel products or technologies. There are many techniques such as interviews, surveys, demographic information, and web analytics that can help you decipher and discover what customers find valuable. By using these qualitative and quantitative techniques you can uncover what customers want, how they want the product or service to be delivered, and the price that they afford.

2. Map the Value Stream

The second Lean principle is identifying and mapping the value stream. In this step, the goal is to use the customer’s value as a reference point and identify all the activities that contribute to these values. Activities that do not add value to the end customer are considered waste. The waste can be broken into two categories: non-valued added but necessary and non-value & unnecessary. The later is pure waste and should be eliminated while the former should be reduced as much as possible. By reducing and eliminating unnecessary processes or steps, you can ensure that customers are getting exactly what they want while at the same time reducing the cost of producing that product or service.

3. Create Flow

After removing the wastes from the value stream, the following action is to ensure that the flow of the remaining steps run smoothly without interruptions or delays. Some strategies for ensuring that value-adding activities flow smoothly include: breaking down steps, reconfiguring the production steps, leveling out the workload, creating cross-functional departments, and training employees to be multi-skilled and adaptive.

4. Establish Pull

Inventory is considered one of the biggest wastes in any production system. The goal of a pull-based system is to limit inventory and work in process (WIP) items while ensuring that the requisite materials and information are available for a smooth flow of work. In other words, a pull-based system allows for Just-in-time delivery and manufacturing where products are created at the time that they are needed and in just the quantities needed. Pull-based systems are always created from the needs of the end customers. By following the value stream and working backwards through the production system, you can ensure that the products produced will be able to satisfy the needs of customers.

5. Pursue Perfection

Wastes are prevented through the achievement of the first four steps: 1) identifying value, 2) mapping value stream, 3) creating flow, and 4) adopting a pull system. However, the fifth step of pursuing perfection is the most important among them all. It makes Lean thinking and continuous process improvement a part of the organizational culture. Every employee should strive towards perfection while delivering products based on the customer needs. The company should be a learning organization and always find ways to get a little better each and every day.