Implementing Supply Chain Management
- 1. IMPLEMENTING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT By: Aric Smoker
- 2. Why Supply Chain Management Matters ■ Businesses must communicate between different aspects of its business, and they can only be as strong as its weakest aspect.
- 3. Use a Process Framework ■ It is easier to understand supply chain if you separate it into different processes.
- 4. Plan the Supply Chain ■ You cannot start supply chain management without first creating an ideal plan for your supply chain to follow.
- 5. Source Inputs ■ You must find efficient suppliers to provide the materials that you use to make your products.
- 6. Make Products and Services ■ Every business makes something, it can be a product or a service but it is not only manufacturing.
- 7. Deliver Products ■ Products don’t have value until you deliver them using order management, transportation, and distribution.
- 8. Return Products ■ Managing reverse supply chain is important in keeping good relations with your customers and distributors.
- 9. Enable Supply Chains ■ Things that enable a supply chain are all the things that tie the different aspects together including software and processing systems.
- 10. Prioritize Goals ■ As a company you must decide what goals are most important, and must put obtaining them over other, less important goals.
- 11. CalculateTotal Costs ■ Using the total cost to serve, you can determine where it is viable to cut costs and where those cost cuts may hurt the organization.
- 12. Manage Competing Goals ■ Managing the goals of sales, and the goals of manufacturing is key to efficiency and reducing costs.
- 13. Mitigate Risks ■ A risk register can help to identify risks, and can provide solutions on how to reduce these risks.
- 14. Invest in Flexibility ■ The supply chain needs to be able to keep up with the changing of the global market while reducing the increase in operational and supply chain costs.
- 15. IncreaseVisibilityWith a ControlTower ■ Visibility is important so that managers can view what is happening, and they can make a plan on how to react to what is happening.
- 16. Supply Chain Innovation ■ Innovation is the key to finding better and more efficient ways of doing things, leading to higher profitability.
- 17. Ecommerce and Social Media ■ Technology and consumers within the marketplace are changing constantly, social media and the internet makes it easier to share information about products and companies.
- 18. Internet and DataTrends ■ Internet ofThings, customer profiling, big data, cloud computing and analytics are information technologies that are changing the ways supply chains are operated.
- 19. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ■ Artificial intelligence is important in processing data and information, and should be used with human judgement to make final decisions.
- 20. Blockchain ■ Blockchain keeps information on transactions between companies, and can be shared to many different computers and information systems.
- 21. Automation, Robotics, and Drones ■ Automation and robotics has created advanced supply chain, and has made things more efficient in some aspects of supply chain.
- 22. Get the Right People in the Right Positions ■ Proper training and education is important in ensuring that you have the right people doing the right job that they are most effective at.
- 23. Select the RightTechnologies ■ The chosen technology must align with your strategy, goals, and employee structure within the organization.
- 24. Collaborate Internally ■ Decisions between different sections of an organization must align with each other to reach the set industry goals.
- 25. Collaborate Externally ■ Collaborating between customers and suppliers can help to streamline processes and eliminate waste.
- 26. Manage Projects Effectively ■ Being able to complete projects effectively allows supply chains to improve and keep up with changing demand and technology.