What could you do with a faster, more effective supply chain?

AlexaCheater

How concurrent planning can help you take back your time

effective supply chainStop being a slave to your supply chain and take back your time! Don’t wait around for your supply chain to catch up to the speed of life. Why spend hours, days or even weeks waiting for data transfers, analyses or simulations when you can accomplish all of those things in a fraction of the time it takes you today. All you need is the right supply chain management software – one that enables concurrent planning.

Concurrent planning isn’t a collection of disconnected functional models. It’s a way to look at the supply chain as a whole, not just individual links in a broken chain. It allows you to bridge the gap between data, process and people, so you can better manage sales and operations planning (S&OP) and supply chain planning more effectively.

Here are just a few of the things you could find time for if you ran an effective supply chain with concurrent planning at its core:

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The importance of reverse logistics in your supply chain network

ImanNiroomand

Reverse logisticsReverse logistics is defined as the process of moving goods beyond their typical final destination for things like re-use, capturing value, or proper disposal.

In supply chain networks, materials flow from suppliers through to end customers. Supply chain executives measure the effectiveness of that flow using the on-time delivery (OTD) metric. It’s a common supply chain measurement, focused on ensuring delivery to the end customer is fast and efficient from the time the customer puts his or her order in place. However, the mission of your supply chain doesn’t necessarily end when the product reaches the end customer. There are many reasons customers return products, including:

  • The customer bought the wrong product
  • The product was damaged upon arrival
  • The product did not match its description
  • The customer no longer wants the product

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Supply chain impact before, during, and after Hurricane Irma

BillDuBois

What are your supply chain thoughts when you see this picture?

As pictures start to emerge showing the damage caused by the recent string of hurricanes like Harvey and Irma, immediate thoughts go to the safety of the people caught in the path of these storms. Thoughts and hopefully many donations are going to all those involved in disaster recovery efforts.

The image below is an aerial photo taken and released by the Dutch Department of Defense showing the damage of hurricane Irma wrought on a shipping yard in the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten.

Hurrican Irma - Supply chain impact

If you happen to be involved in any way in supply chain, whether it’s supply chain planning, manufacturing or distribution, your next thought after hoping people are okay is likely, “holy crap!”. Once the initial shock has worn off, your supply chain instincts will kick in as you assess the damage from a supply chain perspective.

You’re probably asking the question, “What’s the impact on supply?”. As you look at this picture, it’s natural to think about the amount and value of supply that is damaged or stuck on route. That immediately leads to worrying about the impact on the customer:

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Supply chain pain points: Automotive

AlexaCheater

6 speed bumps on the road to automotive supply chain success

Automotive supply chainA trending move from regional to global supply chain processes is adding complexity to the automotive supply chain at an unprecedented level, driving a growing need for automation and collaboration. That’s revving up interest in realignment, consolidation and optimization of supply chain activities. The problem is, limited investment in top tier suppliers is causing constraints, and the rise in connect devices (including cars) means requirements for further innovation must extend beyond environmental footprint and safety.

Emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China are further changing the automotive landscape, as automakers look to streamline distribution and better serve these areas, who combined represent 40% of the world’s population and have gross domestic product (GDP) growth far exceeding that of more fully developed countries.

Staying competitive has become harder than ever. Here are just a few of the other challenges facing the automotive industry.

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Does your supply chain hear the change coming?

JoeCannata

What rapid adoption of virtual assistants means for CPG supply chains

CPG supply chainI recall watching the original Battlestar Galactica series in the late 1970s, and there was an episode where Commander Adama was dictating his log. Before him was a computer screen recognizing his voice, taking his spoken words and translating them to perfect text for all to see. The capitalization and punctuation were perfect. Who knew back in 1978, when a home computer was slightly more than an expensive toy, and large computers were mainframes that ate punch cards and spewed paper and hole-punched tape, that this stunning scene would be a reality in my lifetime?

Now let’s move on to December of 1983, when a small company owned by Exxon Enterprises, named Verbex, interviewed me for a Systems Analyst position. Verbex had nothing to do with oil. They were one of the early pioneers of voice recognition technology, and produced a device about the size of a small paperback book, that had an active vocabulary from 300 to 10,000 words. It was being used at the time for everything from bridge painting to package sorting. I didn’t get the job, but I was made quite aware that the “future” shown in a 1978 TV show was five years closer to becoming a reality.

Now if we fast-forward to present day, we have the likes of Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Bixby, all on personal devices. I have spoken into my phone to Google to get directions on numerous occasions. People dictate text messages. And now, using technologies like Amazon Echo, people can order whatever they want, any time, from any place. This fundamental shift in the shopping paradigm is posing unique challenges for supply chains. Already, supply chains have had to adapt to online shopping, and crazy fulfillment demands. After reading a recent article in SCM World by Kevin O’Marah, I learned that CPG companies have felt extreme upstream pressure, as he puts it.

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Countdown to Kinexions ’17: Supply chain stories that inspire

TeresaChiykowski

Supply chain conferenceIt’s hard to believe that Kinexions ‘17 is only a few weeks away. Time flies – just like astronaut Chris Hadfield, who will be joining us as our keynote speaker on the Kinexions mainstage in Orlando this year.

For those of you who missed my last blog post, Kinexions is the premier annual event for our RapidResponse® user community, including customers and prospects. The supply chain conference offers two full days of networking, inspiring keynotes, informative general sessions and a variety of breakouts delivered by customers, product experts and partners.

Last post, I touched on the top five reasons to attend the conference:

  1. Supply chain stories that inspire
  2. Out-of-this-world keynote speakers
  3. Network. Network.
  4. Fun, exercise and a touch of Supertramp
  5. More opportunities for RapidResponse learning

Today, I’d like to dig a little deeper into reason #1: supply chain stories that inspire.

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10 must ask supply chain data security questions

AlexaCheater

Supply chain dataWhen it comes to cyber safety, your supply chain could be your biggest weakness. Approximately 80% of data breaches originate from within the supply chain, and the financial impact of a breach could do more than destroy your bottom line. It could ruin your credibility with your customers.

In 2013, Target, one of the largest retailers in the US, fell victim to a massive data breach when a cyber intruder stole credit and debit card information on more than 40 million customers and personal details like addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 70 million customers. It cost Target more than $88 million in damages. Attacks like these have become the number one threat to many organizations and their associated supply chains, but protecting yourself isn’t enough.

Target’s breach was traced back to malware installed on its point-of-sale system. The attack came through one of its vendors, making it even more important that you have end-to-end visibility through all tiers of your suppliers – not just the top few.

While cyberattacks aimed at stealing data remain the most visible risk, attacks designed to deny or disrupt service are also gaining in popularity. These types of cyberattacks jeopardize production and delivery schedules, causing delays and negatively affecting customers. Nodes along the entire supply chain can feel the impacts.

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Supply chain risks: The knowable unknowns that can hurt your supply chain performance!

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Supply chain riskCSX, one of the only two railroad operators in the USA that handles nearly all the shipments that move by train east of the Mississippi River has been experiencing serious challenges since the month of May. The reasons behind this were well chronicled in a recent Wall Street Journal article. To sum it up, an activist investor caused a major shakeup in the company earlier this year and a new CEO took over in March. The new CEO embarked on several cost reduction initiatives in conjunction with a number of changes (some may argue too fast and too soon) on how the company operates its freight-trains. This has resulted in significant delays and disruptions in shipment deliveries. An extreme example of this is a ride from Chicago to Colesburg, Tennessee taking 18 days, 13 hours, and 57 minutes!

The effects of these delays are being felt by many companies including McDonalds, Kellogg, Kraft-Heinz, and PepsiCo, as the article cites. These companies had to haul expedited shipments by truck so they could keep their production lines running and, in turn, meet the commitments to their customers. This has led to increased costs, not to mention all the inventory stuck in-transit.

Needless to say, such major challenges are visible enough and have significant enough disruptive power that considerable energy gets spent on addressing them, including executive engagement. However, did you know there are enough lead time problems lurking in your current supply chain operations that go completely unnoticed? These are the “knowable unknowns” that can hurt your supply chain performance.

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