Ms. Ptak is certified through APICS at the fellow level (CFPIM) and was certified in Integrated Resource Management (CIRM) with the first group internationally. Ms. Ptak was the President and CEO of APICS, The Educational Society for Resource Management for the year 2000. Prior to her election as APICS President, she served on the Society in a variety of positions.
Carol Ptak currently makes her home on a working cattle ranch in the Pinal Mountains near Globe, Arizona, with her husband, Jim, her two dogs, three horses, and the largest fold of purebred registered Scottish Highland cattle in Arizona.
About the Demand Driven Institute
With affiliates, compliant software alliances, and instructors throughout the world, we are changing the way businesses plan, operate, think, and evolve. Your business has a choice: continue to operate with rules, metrics, and tools developed more than fifty years ago, or make a break from convention, recognize the complex supply chains we live in, and make a fundamental change in the way it does business . . . but don’t take too long or the choice will be made for you.
Thought Leadership
The Demand Driven Institute (DDI) was founded in 2011 by Carol Ptak and Chad Smith. Collectively, Ms. Ptak and Mr. Smith have authored or co-authored several published works on Demand Driven Principles, Finance and Information, and Planning Systems.
Powerful Educational Programs
DDI educational products are a powerful suite of enterprise education designed to enable companies to begin and sustain an implementation of a Demand Driven Operating Model (DDOM) and the Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise (DDAE) model.
High Impact Simulations and Games
The Demand Driven Institute offers a suite of co-branded and fully endorsed simulations and games that teach various aspects of the Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise Model. Simulations are offered throughout the world as both public and in-house events.
Professional Endorsement Certificates
As the leading authority on Demand Driven methods, the Demand Driven Institute offers a comprehensive series of professional endorsement certificates. These endorsement certificates are the gold standard in ensuring and identifying an individual’s understanding of, and ability to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create value using Demand Driven methods.
Software Compliance
As the leading authority on Demand Driven methods, Demand Driven Institute evaluates and certifies software ensuring that a specific software has enough features and/or functions to implement, sustain and even improve a DDMRP implementation. This objective evaluation and certification is provided free of charge to software entities. If you are considering a software claiming DDMRP functionality, look for the DDI compliance label.
Learn more at www.demanddriveninstitute.com.
This book is truly built on the shoulders of many giants, from the original work of the practitioners who developed MRP, including Joe Orlicky, George Plossl, Richard (Dick) Ling, and Ollie Wight, to the great thinkers behind lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints—Taiichi Ohno, W. Edwards Deming, and Eliyahu Goldratt. The authors have stood on the shoulders of these giants to unite these different theories and methodologies and take a leap forward—into a future of planning with relevant visibility that mitigates the volatile, uncertain, and variable world that seems impossible to plan. We have known many of these giants personally and wish to express our continued appreciation to them.
Collectively, the authors would like to thank the members of the Demand Driven Institute Global Affiliate Network for a great partnership in bringing demand driven concepts to the mainstream throughout the world.
Additionally, the authors would like to thank various members of the APICS community for their amazing input and support in trying to restore the promise of effectiveness planning and information systems. Those people include Keith Launchbury, Roberta McPhail, John Melbye, Ken Titmuss, Olivia Reary, and Abe Eshkenazi.
The authors would like to point out particular individuals who have made a lasting contribution to the demand driven body of knowledge and awareness. These people include Greg Cass, Debra Smith, Erik Bush, David Poveda, Dick Ling, Paddy Ramaiyengar, Kirk Black, Caroline Mondon, Alfonso Navarro, Dr. Patrick Rigoni, Dr. Steven Melnyk, Christoph Lenhartz, Laurent Vigouroux, Dr. Romain Miclo, and Alfredo Angrisani.
Chad Smith would like to thank his wife, Sarah, and two daughters, Sophia and Lily, for putting up with the process of writing books and courseware. The support and love of these three people has kept him going. Chad would like to thank the team at Constraints Management Group, LLC, for an amazing journey for nearly 20 years. Specifically, Chad would like to acknowledge the inspiration and accomplishments of his mother, Debra Smith; her direction-setting vision has been instrumental in articulating the Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise model. Finally, Chad would like to thank his partner and coauthor Carol Ptak for an extremely rewarding and fulfilling partnership.
Carol Ptak would like to thank her husband, Jim, for the understanding and the continued support to keep going through the tough times. Words are so insufficient to acknowledge her parents, Dorothy and Bud, who taught her from the youngest age that she was limited only by her imagination even at a time when the glass ceiling was more like concrete. Their love and encouragement has been the wind under her wings. Carol would especially like to thank Chad Smith for an incredible experience and continued partnership—far beyond any that could ever have been imagined. Chad has opened all our eyes to the deeper truth of a new world of planning. The process of writing three books together has been an incredible journey and truly has been an honor and the highlight of a very long career.
“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself”.
The above quote is often falsely attributed to Charles Darwin. While undoubtedly inspired by Darwin’s work, it was Leon Megginson, Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University, who is the source of this quote. Megginson wrote several books on small business management, published over 100 articles, and won numerous awards for teaching and research.1 Regardless of the source of the quote, the message for business leadership should be powerful: adapt or die.
The dodo bird is an extinct flightless bird that was native to the island of Mauritius, first recorded by Dutch sailors in 1598. When the Dutch colonized the island, they brought with them dogs and pigs. This resulted in an immediate and profound change to the dodo’s native environment, one to which it could simply not adapt. The last credible sighting of a dodo was in 1662. In less than 100 years the dodo was gone. It disappeared so quickly many thought it was a mythical creature until researchers in the middle of the nineteenth century thoroughly studied remains of the bird.2
What can be learned from the dodo? The dodo had no say on the changes to the environment; they were imposed upon it. In today’s world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) there is a high degree of probability that organizations will have environmental changes imposed