Supply chain digitisation means moving all aspects of a supply chain online, including procurement, invoicing, approval cycles and payment procedures (and in some cases actual delivery). Ideally, these tasks are all completed in the cloud, because this allows employees to securely access supplier relationship history and outstanding requests from anywhere, at any time. This new evolution of supply chains is more connected, intelligent, responsive, and predictive, and is a great digital framework for an extended supply chain.
Driving actual demand signals through the extended supply chain and connecting this data with R&D, manufacturing and supply chain processes enables the design, production, and delivery of the most profitable solutions and services to the customer while maximising customer satisfaction.
Today, customers can buy through multiple channels, at any time, on any device. We see retailers bringing the online experience to the store, and the store experience to online sales. This drives the need for business process change across logistics functions. The store, warehouse, and distribution centre are all becoming fulfilment hubs to minimise inventory and maximise customer service, creating opportunities for companies as they offer same-day delivery, to buy online and pick up at the nearest store, offer door-to-door delivery services for their products in different areas.
Restructure and reorganise the business processes by an extended supply chain:
Focus on customers’ demands by sensing, cleaning and toning structured and unstructured demand signals.
Create more connected, market-driven, and customer-centric distribution networks.
Deliver personalised products, uniquely built and therefore capture all forms of demand.
Shift to an Omni-channel model, to support the manufacture and delivery of goods according to the customer’s preference.
Eliminate fundamental business processes by leveraging digital technologies.
Drive cross-departmental and company planning processes; raise productivity, profitability and decision support by getting the right information to the right people to help them do their jobs more efficiently. (With solutions such as SO99+ from ToolsGroup)
Improve real-time visibility across core business processes.
Transform asset management with predictive, connective capabilities.
Automate non-value-added tasks in areas such as the warehouse and production floor.
Use interactive technology to improve worker experience with predictive and self-learning software, as well as with machine-to-machine connectivity, and asset optimisation, including voice recognition, augmented reality, and 3D visualisation.
Make available technologies such as 3D printing, additive layer manufacturing, and variable product configurations, driven largely by the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, and sensor technology.
Eliminate work altogether by digitising manual steps in the process and focusing on the value-added operations through the use of robotics and automation.
Optimise scarce resources such as people and natural resources, in a sustainable world.
Leverage Big Data from sensors, weather, social, and geospatial sources, to improved visibility and recommendations across your extended supply chain.
Extend the business process to interoperate with global or local business partners in near real time via advanced cloud-based or business networks, to change how they interact with customers, suppliers, logistics, service providers, third-party organisations, outsourced manufacturers, products, and other partners.
Improved visibility and traceability.
Optimise the utilisation of labour and raw materials to ensure a sustainable business model.
Modernise business processes from the design of your products to the manufacturing and delivery of finished goods, running them in real time with no data replication and no batch programs.
Customer-centric processes are created by harnessing order, forecast, point-of-sale, channel, and social data to sense both short-term and long-term demand.
Integrate business planning solutions that sense real-time demand signals and enable responsive planning to adjust to market dynamics.
Warehousing and transportation solutions that enable flexible logistics processes.
These capabilities open infinite new ways of optimising business, driving business digitisation, simplifying everything, reducing cost, and providing the agility required in a rapidly changing word. Customer-centricity will drive and transform the business processes around, how we design market, personalise, and deliver products and solutions.
To recognise and act on market and environmental dynamics —weather, traffic conditions, and localised sentiment data, for example —may influence buying decisions. This data is key to getting closer to the customer and obtaining a clear picture of real-time demand. Calculating and adjusting demand in real time based on these ever-changing variables is essential.
Which are the risks we could encounter when implementing a digital supply chain?
Sustainability is becoming the lens through which a business is judged by its consumers, workforce, society, and even its investors. Innovation and design processes deliver sustainable products to the market and a network that manages global product safety and compliance throughout the product lifecycle. Large demand of products, raw material such as water, minerals, oil, and gas are key components to many supply chain. Labour scarcities, as well as shrinking workforce, are challenges which increase risk for an organisation and drive the need for alternate sustainable manufacturing.
We have an environmental responsibility. The need for raw materials such as water, minerals, oil, and gas is unlimited, but these resources are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain as demand exceeds supply. Geographic change through growth in emerging markets is rising the demand for finished goods. These trends have been building over the past several years, and as a result, manufacturers will need to do more with less.
Resource and talent shortage are affecting businesses on many fronts. The skills required to run a digitised supply chain have evolved with the emergence of Big Data, both structured and unstructured; a huge rise in the use of contingent labour and where and how it is utilized, for example, or in warehouses where we see augmented reality capabilities optimising the workforce and, increasingly, robotic replacing the workforce to manage increasingly fluctuating demand.
How to minimise the risk?
A key principle of sustainable operations is to encourage people and processes to embrace safety and risk management by performing a thorough assessment of all operational risks, designing and implementing controls, communicating safety information, and managing change safely in the plant environment with an eye toward improving safety.
Integrated business planning process needs to span across all departments and must also cross company boundaries to deliver an agreed upon and aligned go-forward plan. Agility and flexibility are required to adjust course at any time. This involves two key concepts: simplification and innovation. Simplification is all about doing what we are already doing, but better, faster, and cheaper. Innovation is all about reimagining business models and customer value.
To understand the full potential of the close relationships between physical and digital assets and the Internet of Things. A strong platform that is used as a base for customisation with companies allows you to customise your base model to order, as do the mobile phone. This means that, from five or six base options, individual customisation options are practically limitless.
The extended supply chain is at the centre of these business networks as collaboration with customers, suppliers, outsourced or contract manufacturers, logistics service providers, and many other partners are part of the solutions on a daily basis.
The digital economy will be driven by the need and ability to personalise solutions for individual customer demands. IoT, Industry 4.0, 3D printers, Omni-payment processes, additive layer manufacturing, are having a growing effect on the personalisation of products. As companies embed sensors in their products, they are themselves becoming technology companies. Logistics service providers are investing in 3D printing farms to provide value-added customisation services just prior to shipment. This will transform the way that companies design, produce, and deliver goods and services. In the extended supply chain pattern, simplification and business innovation matter more than ever, experience, combination of best practices, methodology and leadership are also quite important.
So where are you investing in your digital transactions, your digital processes and your digital Assets?
Dave Food