Pictures of empty store shelves and container ships idle on the far shore tell the story: The global supply chain is broken, and manufacturers are struggling to fulfill orders.
In this crisis, more and more manufacturing companies are realizing the value of digital tools to maintain inventory and satisfy customers. For 80% of supply chain chief officers, accelerating supply chain digitization efforts is important, according to Accenture research.
At this Workflow roundtable, we asked four supply chain management specialists to discuss how digital workflows can help manufacturers meet their logistics challenges.
Resilient supply chains depend on visibility
Stephen Meyer
In the modern supply chain, you solve the classic basic problem: reconciling your customer’s need with your ability to provide it. You have manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and other companies in the ecosystem, but in many cases they don’t know what’s going on at other nodes in the supply chain. So they make predictions.
Visibility makes it easier to make sure inventory goes where it’s needed. That is hands-down the single biggest benefit of technology stability. If you have a lot of inventory in one location and not in another, you can make real-time decisions thanks to better visibility enabled by technology.
Amazon is a good example. They have amazing information they share back with their suppliers through a portal that gives people real-time visibility into inventory positions and sales levels. This will make you more agile and stable.
– Stephen Meyer, chief director of supply chain research, Accenture
Digital supply helps meet customer demand
David Kurz
The classic challenge faced by supply chain leaders is meeting customer needs without increasing supply chain costs. An example of a trade-off is stock inventory safety: I always satisfy customers by handling high levels of inventory and shipping in an expedited manner, but the cost of excess inventory and fast shipping may not be maintained.
Digital supply as a business strategy offers the opportunity to reduce this trade-off. By understanding customer need with greater precision, an organization can design a supply chain that meets or exceeds customer expectations and performs better. It starts with understanding the customer’s needs and then follows the fulfillment of the demand through delivery. Think of digital as more of a customer -driven business strategy, rather than the fulfillment of orders received from sales.
– David Kurz, associate clinical professor of management, Drexel University
Buying time in the middle of chip crunch
Shruddha Agarwal
Many companies faced a chip crunch because manufacturers did not meet very strong demand during the pandemic. Enterprise -wide digital workflows can alleviate some of these ills. A secure and collaborative implementation platform that enhances transparency and accountability, for example, will allow chip makers to reduce waste and respond more quickly to changing market conditions.
Vehicle companies, in particular, have not met the demand for vehicles because they rely on Tier 1 and Tier 2 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to maintain relationships and orders with chip manufacturers. . OEMs are now looking to change that by creating more direct relationships and partnerships with chipmakers. Here too, digital workflow will be a huge advantage. On the ServiceNow platform, for example, automotive OEMs receive insights from supplier data, such as any risks or shortcomings associated with the chip supply chain; OEMs can engineer contingency plans or workarounds directly with chip manufacturers.
– Shruddha Agarwal, global director of technology industry solutions, ServiceNow
Doubling supply chain digitization
Rob Barrett
Many high-tech companies have been able to navigate last year’s challenges because, years ago, they put in place multitier visibility and coordinated workflow solutions. I know a company in the high-tech sector that has four tiers of its extended supply chain working on a unified platform. There is a common view of data and information, and what constitutes an exception or a problem. Additional tools help the company evaluate the impact of an issue and produce robust analytics.
Traditional manufacturing companies, and perhaps some consumer accounts, are not as lucky today. They put human energy into the problem and manually monitor the information they need on both the demand and supply sides. I host the chief supply chain executive forum, and everyone involved is using this past year’s challenges to duplicate digital and replace the flows of physical information that hinder effective decision-making.
– Rob Barrett, head of training in the US supply chain, KPMG
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