Don’t get too excited – this is really mainly for us at DIAA to better manage the flow of Jump modems – as always, our goal is for all partners to have modems in stock, so that you can continue to provide just-in-time support for your communities.
As we start the new year, we have a 6-week backlog for new modem orders (nearly 2000 modems) and 46 partners who have reached our new red alert level (less than 2 modems in stock). At the same time we have over 2000 modems available in stock at the other 220 partners.
In between Christmas festivities, we have started to address this challenge by prioritising deliveries to partners in the red alert zone and trying to better match supply with demand for other partners. This is a work in progress – the Jump registers for around 30% of all partners have been updated.
Here’s an example of the new summary data, recorded in cells B2 to G2 of each partner’s Jump Register; an explanation for each is summarised below.
Matching names: We are using the conditional formatting function in Google Sheets to identify people who may be applying for more than one modem. The total count (135 in the above case) indicates the number of times that people with the same name (first and last names) have received a modem. In many cases, this will just be a replacement for a faulty modem but there is increasing evidence that people are signing up for a new modem without returning their old one. In the Google Sheets, we use the teal shading to identify the people concerned.
Allocated more than 2 modems: This reflects the number of people who have received 3 or more modems. As above, there could be a good reason for this, but there are also indications that people are not always returning their old (presumably faulty) modem before being issued with another one.
Waiting List: The waiting list count is based on the number of date entries below the blue line. Our preference is for partners to self-manage this list, by deleting people once they are allocated a modem. However to avoid this getting out of hand, we have started to delete any entries older than 3 months. We also keep an eye on this when updating Profile Form responses and will delete anyone who has received a modem. The size of the waiting list directly affects the quantity of modems sent to partners with each shipment.
Actual Stock on hand: This is the number of modems that we believe each partner has available for issue, based on the completed Profile Forms received. This impacts delivery priorities. When actual stock drops to a critical level (2 modems for most partners or 6 modems for partners with a high turnover), this cell is shaded red to provide us with an alert to help us prioritise orders.
Modems on order: At any point in time we typically have 100 orders in the pipeline; each order is capped at 30 modems (5 boxes). In the example above, there are 3 orders, each for 30 modems, in the pipeline. We would expect these to be delivered progressively over the next 6 to 8 weeks.
Re-order trigger: This is calculated dynamically and reflects the number of modems issued by the partner during the last 6-8 weeks plus the number on the waiting list. Our logic is to try and anticipate demand for the next 6-8 weeks to ensure as much as possible a steady flow of modems. As the supply chain speeds up, we reduce the trigger level accordingly.
Updates to reflect new modems: We are also updating all partner GSheets to reflect the forthcoming introduction of the new Futura modems:
One thing to note in the summary is that this stock figure includes actual ‘on-hand’ stock as well as further supplies in the order pipeline.
Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa 