The enhancement of your Supply Chain Planning (SCP) is a crucial objective to meet your customer needs while diminishing costs, and getting the most out of your company operations.
Supply chains are always changing, as it's a fact that customer requirements are continually shifting too. Supply Chain features, dynamic industry forces, and the objectives of the company are also the elements for a constant shifting. Through a planning process and supporting technology, you will be able to better deal with all this disruptive revolution.
Take into account these practices:
Resiliency is explained as "not giving up to attempt something, or as the ability to get back from disruptive transformation rapidly"; and when it comes to your SCP, resiliency is the opportunity to improve Supply Chain capabilities.
Companies can develop resilience by:
Transforming your Corporate Culture.
Developing structural flexibility.
Integrating your planning systems and philosophies.
Balancing redundancy (potential surplus) with resilience
Bear in mind redundancy as an approach may be there to support resilient SCP.
How do you assess possible redundancy? For instance, maintaining extra inventory, retaining just-in-case volume, holding multiple suppliers, while laying off some part of your workforce. Although it means a wave of fresh air to the possibility of operating after a disruption, it is usually not permanent; it might be a high price to invest and could lead your business to have an inferior supply chain.
Take into account Corporate Culture, as it could be the factor to openly make a distinction amongst companies that recuperate faster and are more cost-effective, from those which are less stable. However, it is a fact that SC experts are seldom those who coordinate the Corporate Culture in your business (maybe this needs to change?)
When flexibility or agility is increased, the SCP can both, delay significant disruptions in your business with a better response to demand fluctuations, as well as increasing your capability to optimise your processes. Flexible procedures improve the ability of an SCP process to adapt to shifts and adjust to alternatives faster, focusing on optimal planning while following the guiding principle in your business to be in a better position to incorporate new standards wisely.
Team flexibility enhances SCP resilience. Many SC companies count on well-established-organisational rotation programs to open up the mindset of team members towards numerous roles of the SC; also taking on-board mentorship programs and quick staff rotation processes series to boost retention.
To end with, and because the environment of SCP is always on the move, it is essential that team colleagues be invited to take part in professional organisations, attend courses on the understanding of your procedures and consider innovative technologies and get a certified qualifications at the end; it might imply engaging in advanced or Higher Education. You could as well offer additional financial benefit for continuing education when the purpose is to be certified.
An integrated planning system can grant powerful planning competencies through an insightful user consultation points. A problem can arise when many systems involved don’t count on the essential capabilities, or are organised in such a way that constrains the ability to make changes, or holds inflexible limitations, consistently leading to long-lasting workarounds by using spreadsheets and other detached tools.
SCP experts need a suitable combination of planning technology to safeguard success. Planning categories that support company objectives, enabling improvements and the ability to react when the company isn’t able to follow the optimal plan. It’s vital for these categories to be bi-directionally incorporated, as capabilities of each planning solution must thoroughly link with the other results so that plans generated in each can be lined up and co-ordinated.
Planning visibility of data within the SCP supports the collaboration on plans and the considered circumstances; such as the development of what-if scenarios, the planning of process management workflows, support of performance management and the use of appropriate scales and speed, to develop additional functional capabilities.
SUMMING UP: Anticipating the Supply Chain challenges you may encounter, the future may be problematic. So, overcoming barriers to improving Supply Chain Planning performance is closely tied to having the right enabling planning technology and capabilities in place. Go for talented-highly-skilled individuals with exceptional Analytics and reliable communication tools.
Dave Food
Prophetic Technology
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