Tag Archives: Supply chain management

How Do You Turn Supply Chain Data into Actionable Information?

Posted on by

How Do You Turn Supply Chain Data into Actionable Information?

There is a continuum in terms of presentation of data that allows for continuous sophistication in understanding and interpreting data. There are lots of ways to view data, but three that are particularly useful in supply-chain analytics are –Reporting, Scorecarding, and Benchmarking.

The simplest form of looking at data is what we have all seen dozens of times, we call it “Reporting”. Back in the day, reporting was numbers printed out on green bar paper, but today’s business intelligence reports are far more detailed and dynamic than in the past. For instance, a BI report of today displays all the data about transportation providers as usable information, in a scorecard format. Factors such as on-time delivery, freight cost per unit shipped, and transit time are assigned metrics and weighted averages to help users determine how well carriers are performing overall.

Operation managers and executives who want a quick, daily overview of what is happening in their transportation or supply chain network use dashboards to provide information in near real-time to help users understand what is happening within their network, and allows them to make proactive decisions to remedy problems as they occur. Where reporting is really like looking in the rearview mirror, dashboards are used to see what’s going on now, and makes it easier for users to identify trends and exceptions, and to intervene before something goes wrong.

Do you have any questions about this topic? Send us a message or leave your comments below.

Related articles

Five factors of supply chain sustainability

Posted on by

The five factors of supply chain sustainability

Leadership, empowerment and sharing success stories are among the attributes required to implement sustainable procurement.

That’s according to a panel of experts who shared their top tips at the Institute for Supply Management annual conference in Las Vegas, US last week. The advice included:

  1. Sustainability champions : “Find out who’s passionate about this in your organisation and ask them to be champions.”
  2. Leadership : “You are all leaders to your supply chain, they’re looking to you and your actions and expectations.”
  3. Empowerment : “If you give people a ladder to execute in their own fashion they will take ownership of it.”
  4. Success : “Nothing sells better than success, so we recognise and reward success.”
  5. Metrics : “If you can communicate what you [have done], it is really a powerful story.”

Do you have any opinions? Leave your comments below or send us a message.

Related articles

80 per cent of supply chain managers don’t believe their supply chain enables business strategy

Posted on by

80 per cent of supply chain managers don’t believe their supply chain enables business strategy

Some eight out of 10 supply chain managers do not see their supply chain as an “enabler of business strategies” within their organisation, according to a survey.

The poll, conducted by Hitachi Consulting, also found 55 per cent do not regard their business’s supply chain as a “fundamental source of business value and competitive advantage” and 29 per cent see it as “purely an operational function”.

Cathy Johnson, vice president at Hitachi Consulting, said: “These figures are far from reassuring. For the most part, it seems that senior executives understand the strategic importance of the supply chain, yet the managers who deal with the supply chain on a day-to-day basis do not.

“A supply chain that doesn’t support the overarching business strategy, and which doesn’t deliver competitive edge – and which isn’t going to deliver a material change in performance over the next five years – is clearly not a desirable asset.”

The survey, involving 100 supply chain managers and directors from nine European countries, revealed almost half did not believe their organisation’s supply chain would deliver increased profitability over the next five years, just a third believed it would deliver an improved customer experience over the same period, and half did not think it would deliver a “reduced working capital requirement”.

What is your opinion? Write it below in the comment or contact us for discussion.

Related articles

Coca-Cola refreshes sustainable sourcing goals

Posted on by

Coca-Cola refreshes sustainable sourcing goals

Coca-Cola has increased efforts to make its supply chain more sustainable by announcing a series of new targets in the areas of sourcing, water use and carbon dioxide emissions.

The drinks producer, which is working with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on its sustainability programme, announced a target of improving water efficiency by 25 per cent among a series of sustainability goals for 2020. It also pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions of its drinks by a quarter and to work with the WWF to ensure that materials for its PlantBottle, which is manufactured entirely from plant materials, are sourced sustainably.

Other additions to its 2020 sustainability strategy include working to ensure key ingredients, such as sugar cane, mango and pulp and paper are sourced sustainably and replenishing 100 per cent of the water expended through its operations. It also aims to reach a 75 per cent recovery rate on the bottles and cans it sells in developed markets.

Coca-cola’s strategy is one of many good examples about how supply chain management is utilized into operations. If you are interested in how to improve your supply chain management, feel free to contact us.

 

Related articles

New Supply Chain Trend: Amazon Moving In With Manufacturers

Posted on by

Moving In With Manufacturers, Amazon Delivers A New Approach

Amazon initiates a new trend in supply chain management by handling 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) for its manufacturers in order to reduce the Time-To-Delivery (TTD) much shorter between manufacturers and consumers.

Today, most 3PLs are already hosting market place by providing logistics service at their distribution centers (DCs). Vendors and manufacturers are sending their goods to those DCs and the 3PLs handle the logistics for the vendors and manufacturers from those DCs. Amazon moves the 3PL services further to the “upstream” of its supply chain by moving the 3PL services from its DCs much closer to its manufacturers. This approach is quite different from Wal-Mart‘s logistics strategy, which is a centralized 3PL.

The benefit of the new distributed 3PL approach is worth watching. If you are interested in how to innovate your logistics operations, feel free to contact us.

Related articles

Supply Chain Institute: Welcome

Posted on by

Supply Chain Institute

Thank you for visiting our new preliminary Internet Site of Supply Chain Institute. As a new resource for BI, operation performance, and risk management, we want to keep you informed of the latest news, advancement in the field, and the offerings of the Institute. To that effect and the opportunity of networking, the site’s content management system has been designed for initial communication. It will enable us to always keep you up to date. With a few simple clicks, you will register on the site and become a member of the mailing list of our institute.

Presently, our web site is still under construction. We are making an effort to present you with our entire spectrum of offers (enhanced by your suggestions and recommendations) as soon as possible. In the near future we will provide you with information regarding BI, risk, and performance analysis in the context of supply chain management. The emphasis of our business is on the new methodology and technology on the core competency and focus of the Institute, Supply Chain Management. This topic is certainly of interest to you. Please register and check this site later. You may email us at info@supplychaininstitute.com or call us at (919)618-0743. Our fax number is (419) 818-8537.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Risk Management

Posted on by

Risk Management

For any business, supply and demand chain disruption represent at least, an immediate financial risk, that no business can afford to let it to happen. At worst, any disruption will have long term ramification on the future revenue. The fact of the matter is that disruption doesn’t happen out of a sudden. It is preceded by its precursor signals. These signals either are not detected or are ignored. So a proper proactive risk management program should be designed such that it encompasses and incorporates all active networks of a supply and demand chain. This way, any variance is detected at early stage on the upstream or downstream networks.

In our approach we investigate financial risk, environmental risk, and risk to customers. In a quantitative approach, the bottom line is profit against loss. In methodology we practice, the focus is on identification, evaluation, analysis and optimal management. We believe that any business action or decision generates risk. Consequently we have to learn to live with it. The way that civilizations have rid out the natural disasters exemplifies our recommended approach; risk tolerance. An organization can best survive any interruption or even disaster if risk tolerance is embedded in its infrastructure. This is the basic philosophy of supply chain Institute in dealing with risk.

In near future, we will introduce curriculum of risk management in the form of workshop tailored for industrial applications.

Related articles

Supply Chain, Risk, and BI Management

Posted on by

Supply Chain, Risk, and BI Management

Greetings:

In response to colleagues request and market demand for SCM, BI, and Risk, I am initiating a lecture (posting) series under the title of:

“Risk, and Business Intelligence in the context of Supply and Demand Chain Management.”

Continue reading →

Risk Management Workshop

Posted on by

Curriculum In Risk

Risk Management Across Global Supply Chain

Application in Procurement

Summary:

In Today’s competitive market, Risk Management represents a new shift in businesses paradigm. As the economies become more service driven and globally oriented, businesses cannot afford to let new, unforeseen areas of risk remain unidentified and unattended. Currency fluctuations, human resources in foreign countries, evaporating distribution channels, corporate governance, unprecedented dependence on technology, flow of raw material to manufacturing sites, manufacturing process and the logistics of delivery of finished goods are just a few of the new risks businesses must assess and manage.

Continue reading →