Coming out of a very challenging period like COVID-19, companies all over the world had to address a waiver of problems. Labor shortage, material delays and current economic fluctuations have impacted the costs. This required a proper planning approach, and a clear view of the processes within the supply chain.
Now, how did that work out? Best in class companies were probably busy with reviewing their portfolio to prioritize customers. To be able to do so, it is important to efficiently be able to track inventory levels, anticipating demand and coordination of both to fulfill service levels. Enter the importance of visibility on the supply chain.
To prepare your company for a next challenge, we are happy to provide you with some key actions.
4 key actions to consider:
1/ Visibility & transparency
To be able to indicate where your supply chain might be failing, it is crucial to have a good overview of its current status. Maybe you will need to reassess your portfolio management to identify what are slow moving products, or maybe some of the order quantities are not as cost effective as you may hope them to be. Having the ability to have a good look on your supply chain will help you discover the weakest links and help you focus on where improvement is needed.
2/ Resilience
Unfortunately, we have had our biggest example recently of how important it is to have a resilient supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic has put us all to the test and has shown us how vulnerable our processes can be. However, from every crisis we can learn. Building a resilient supply chain by for example diversifying suppliers, revising service levels, and revisiting current inventory parameters are among the actions we can take to enforce resilience.
3/ Automation
Companies all over the world have been gradually embracing digitalisation and automation, and this year acceleration is key. Introducing new technologies like Building Information Modeling (BIM), drones, autonomous equipment and so on, are becoming integral to improvement projects. Apart from manufacturing automation, automation also resides in processes. If you are currently working with more manual processes, it might be time to automate that process, so your focus can go to solving the problems instead of juggling everything all at once! Look at what needs your attention in your supply chain and automate what can be standardised!
4/ Advanced analytics
Data analytics will play a pivotal role in supply chain management. Advanced analytics will help in demand forecasting, allowing companies to optimize inventory levels and reduce carrying costs. That last element is what your CFO wants to hear! An intelligent system can help you along the way.
Let’s be clear: progress is the way to success. If you are working on any of the above topics, you are going in the right direction! At Optimact we have helped numerous companies improve their supply chain processes. Have a look at our customer cases to get an idea of how we have helped other companies or get in touch and see how we can help your company build the road ahead.
