Who is involved in supply chain management?
I found a really great article at the Bangkok Post site here. This article hit home because it talked about several topics that I have found in talking to companies. It’s central theme is one of asking who is involved in supply chain management and that it’s more people than you think.
I’ve absolutely seen this to be the case time and time again. Especially in today’s environment of constant change - the people that end up involved are from various functions in the organization. You’ve got your customer service representatives that are the voice of the customer and have a high degree of interest in trying to please them. Then you have your planners, schedulers, buyers, outsourcing partners, demand managers, etc., etc. - all people that frequently get involved in dealing with the unexpected.
The article accurately states that “tradeoffs between cost and customer service are inevitable, given the geographic reach, product mix, customer and channel variety, and supply variability, the planning process is complex and requires sophisticated information management to support it.” So, think about your organization. When a demand change comes in - maybe a last minute order or a last minute order change - who gets involved trying to figure out the right tradeoff to make at that time. Or, what happens when that just-in-time inventory shows up but its the wrong stuff?
If you’re like most companies, it’s a wide variety of people that get involved and it varies by the situation. All of these people are involved in the demand management and supply chain management processes critical to market success. But, a lot of companies only focus on the more traditional roles - the planners, schedulers, etc.
Once you’ve accounted for all of the people involved in these types of decisions, the next question to ask is how are they going about solving these problems today? If you’re like most companies, it’s a scramble. The key to automating this critical response process is empowering these people with the right information and tools to respond both quickly and accurately - with proactive insight into the impact of their actions.
