Going In Depth: What Can Supply Chain Management Deliver to My Business?
Most companies, even today, are highly reactive when it comes to operating their most critical resource - the Supply Chain. Common practices include producing to overly inflated inventory targets, expediting production orders to meet critical customer needs, expediting raw material receipts to prevent production downtime, using costly overtime, and running to full capacity but not making the right product at the right time. Similarly, major strategic decisions, such as acquiring additional capacity, are often made without an in depth analysis of the situation which results in a misalignment of resources required verses resources available.
Supply Chain (SC) management can provide structured planning and scheduling solutions that use optimization, simulation and constraint based planning technologies to provide a full suite of demand, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and logistics planning products that address both strategic and operational planning needs.
Intelligent SC management presents the single greatest opportunity for increasing market share, cash flow and profits. It enables one to make informed decisions along the entire supply chain, from acquiring raw materials to manufacturing products to distributing finished goods to the consumer. Efficient SC management is about an integrated approach to planning, transacting, tracking and reporting on all resources, demand and supply within a company.
Any business activity can be put in the context of the classic resource optimization problem faced by companies all over the world: how to make the best possible use of costly resources. Making the right choices, redirecting resources to handle shortages and rearranging activity sequences can lower costs, reduce waste, shorten cycle times and expedite deliveries. They can make the difference between profit and loss.
