The eight-tier supply chain strategies from Infor
Thomson, MD of Softworx, an EOH company and distributor of Infor in sub-Saharan Africa, feels that the supply chain is having a tremendous impact on businesses today due to emergence of a whole new set of factors. These factors have been analyzed by Infor which has developed a new way for companies to view their supply chains - they call it the “concept-to-customer” approach. This approach can be defined as taking the broadest possible view of the variables impacting a business, says Thomson.
To foster concept-to-customer thinking, Infor has identified eight supply chain strategies that enable organizations to take the actions necessary to build anticipation and resilience into their supply chains. These strategies can be listed down as:
Dynamic adjustment of the network
Instead of continuing the network in the old fashioned inherited way, the companies should sit down and design and regularly assess their networks which will help mitigate the effects of external pressures for effectiveness in meeting requirements.
Viewing the demand globally
If your company takes a global view of the demand, it can detect changes in trends, customers buying patterns, and also changes at the regional, product, channel, and customer levels. This helps you in integrated business planning so that you can set the parameters for the inventory, production, sourcing, and distribution plans that follow.
Working the supply network
To work your supply network you have to take decisions based on the balance between demand and supply capacity factors. This will help you to choose the best option in terms of customer service and total cost of supply.
Enhancing asset productivity
Advanced planning solutions will help manufacturers, logistics providers, and retailers come out of the confines of traditional planning so that they have greater visibility and control over capacities, materials, labor, and task sequencing which will help them extract the most of their capital investments.
Expansion of visibility
Demand visibility solutions can help manufacturers enhance their business results by taking notice of what retailers are selling so they can adjust their production and help the retailers to get an idea of what products are being produced and what will be delivered to them, if they implement solutions that provide visibility further up the supply chain.
Knowing what is happening around you
Event management technologies can help companies sense what is happening both inside and outside the organization so that they can detect changes in the market as early as possible and take early corrective actions. As companies strive to deploy concept-to-customer supply chains, event management technologies will be an important tool to deliver the responsiveness they need.
Designing products for market delivery
These days product life cycle management is increasingly being incorporated into supply chain to get product designs right the first time so the incidence of failure and time to market can be reduced and to use a third-party logistics provider into the supply chain for a flexible approach and to take cost out of the manufacturing process.
Tracking performance for continuous improvement
The most important step in this concept-to-customer supply chain approach is measuring and tracking the performance of the business through a number of analytics and performance management solutions available that can streamline the way information is collected, analysed, shared with supply chain partners, and reported to government agencies.
“By implementing these strategies, companies can derive tangible business benefits from the concept-to-customer approach. Concept-to-customer thinking leads to improved decision-making because you have more complete, more accurate, and timelier knowledge of all the factors influencing your business. In addition, this type of thinking improves visibility and your ability to anticipate and respond to both risk and opportunity in the management of your supply chain,”
Thomson concludes.
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