Supply chain visibility, a term that like two sides of coin brings with it potential for tremendously improved supply chain performance on one side and a level of vagueness & uncertainty on other side. The concept of supply chain visibility in late 1990’s and is still new to many organizations. Art Mesher, then an analyst at Gartner gave the concept of “The 3V’s of supply chain”. The 3 V’s of supply chain stands for velocity, variability and visibility. Corporates and companies have worked upon the velocity and variability of supply chain but still have very little understanding of visibility.
Visibility not only means on-shelf inventory but also means inventory piled up at all levels of supply chain including in transit inventory and inventory piled up across company’s network. Visibility allows concerned people in supply chain to forecast problems before they occur and taken necessary steps to avoid expense in the real time. Two drivers of this savings through visibility come from PO lifecycle and ASN (Advanced Shipped Notice, Inventory) accuracy.
Figure Source: Supply Chain Digest Letter, April 2012
Supply Chain Visibility Vectors – A case of Reliance Fresh
Visibility vectors are basically the factors that affect the visibility of products and services across various layers of organization’s network. We will take the case of Reliance fresh stores as example for better understanding of supply chain vectors. There can be seven major vectors which are as follows:-
(a) Demand Management
(b) Supply Management
(c) International Sourcing
(d) Domestic Sourcing
(e) Inventory
(f) Distribution and Logistics
(g) Risk Management
Demand Management
Proper demand management with proper demand forecasting based on ...
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...here are different logistics partners even within the same cities. It makes difficult to estimate the in transit inventory. There is no sharing of data between logistics partners which makes demand and supply estimation more difficult.
Earlier Reliance had a dedicated Reliance Logistics as their logistics partner but it could not survive for long. There should be uniform dedicated logistics partner at least on city level as it will increase the response time and information can easily be shared about the demand and supply.
Risk Management
Constant review of risk management and mitigation plan both at strategic and tactical level should be done depending upon the degree of risk involved in the business and the nature of the product.
Based on the above mentioned secondary research, the following supply chain visibility matrix for Reliance Fresh has been suggested.
Over the years role of supply chain has been altered. The distribution has switched from shipping from one focal point, now technology has shortened the process that will to ship directly from the manufacture to the customer that will tie in to the distribution channels. Though distribution is costly, a person would think all the risk will be eliminated. Contrarily to what people may think, distribution have many risk it must account. When the product is unloaded onto the truck, it’s the trucker sole responsibility to ensure the customer receive their product. Distribution initially start at beginning when it is
Supply chains are all exercises that create or give an item as well as support to a client. Verifiably store network administration has been about decreasing expense. Overseeing inventory network expense is key vital wanting to stay aggressive in a worldwide business sector. All associations have an inventory network. A production network incorporates outside, inside, approaching, and active. Outside and inside supply chains are individuals, parts, crude material, crude sustenance, data, improvement of individuals and ventures, designing, work, completed items, and segments of items that will approaching supplies, use, stockpiling, appropriation and proficiently, to accomplish most extreme estimation of each. So as to be aggressive and reasonable
Sunil Chopra and Peter Mendl argue that inventory is one of the drivers of the supply chain performance and that it has a great impact as the other drivers, such as facilities and transportation which are the same as inventory being ‘Logistical Drivers’. Analyzing the position of inventory in the supply chain, certain factors of the inventory will be taken into account such as the responsiveness, economies of scale, the different variations of inventory, how other factors will affect the inventory, and transportation, which as stated before it is one of the drivers in the supply chain, Vs. inventory. All these concepts of inventory will be analyzed in the supermarkets domain and how crucial is inventory for the supply chain performance.
Through their SCM Solutions, Oracle can manage one’s transportation and global trade operations, while streamlining everyday warehousing needs (Oracle SCM Solutions-Transportation Management). Throughout Oracle’s Transportation Management, they have the capability to manage all transportation activity throughout their supply chain, which enables them to optimize service levels and automate the numerous processes to have operations running more efficiently. As stated above, TMS can offer various functions to support a business such as Business Intelligence, Item Visibility, and Carrier Contract Management. Oracle’s Transportation management service provider correspondingly supplies similar services to improve procedures such as Transportation Intelligence, Visibility, & Carrier Sourcing (Oracle SCM Solutions-Transportation Management). The Transportation Intelligence function attempts to track items/orders/shipments, make appropriate changes to improve cost & services, and monitor metrics against benchmarks and forecasts (Oracle SCM Solutions-Transportation Management). One essential feature of TMS was the ability to track one’s orders from pick-up to delivery. Oracle focuses its practices on Visibility, to ensure that they provide superior service. Within their Visibility realm, Oracle manages the lifecycle of orders through automatic milestone monitoring, both on-hand and in-transit inventory across the extended supply chain, and tracks/traces each stage in the lifecycle of their global shipments (Oracle SCM Solutions-Transportation Management). Furthermore within their Carrier Sourcing, Oracle is able to negotiate with their service providers on rates, comprehend the financial impact before they commit to rate changes, and optimize bid execution with negotiating rates (Oracle SCM Solutions-Transportation Management). Oracle provides tremendously
It is suggested for any organization to review, reassess any existing supply chain management or any delivery techniques, before developing a new supply chain method so that any exposure to high risk of failure is reduced. Somerset as a company taken advantage of outsourcing and transferred it product manufacturing to China leveraging low cost labor and raw material. The labor cost and other cheap material reduce Somerset overhead cost, but there is always the risk of not delivering product on time due to the foreign country political climate, change in tax and tariff and local
Ordering is one of the main factors in the supply chain. The real success of the supply chain management starts from of a customer order. Any ‘waste’ that would lead to delay or disruption need to be eliminated. The orders need to be compiled correctly using accurate data and sent at agreed timings with jointly agreed delivery timings. All orders need to be electronically communicated using EDI or the Internet.
1. Improved supply chain visibility provides present information about location and status of inventory and resources. The information concerning these available resources can also be calculated. However, this isn’t any easy job. Supply chain visibility requires remarkable supervision to take care of emphasizing the need for resources to prevent potential issues. If there is limited visibility when it comes to in-transit inventory and their ETA, it can result in ambiguity regarding product availability.
Even with such pressing requirements, warehousing has seen very little investment in the country. Currently, spending in organized warehousing in India is only 9% of the total logistics spending (its 25% in the US). Logistics costs account for around 6-10% of total retail cost which is higher than the global average of 4-5%. Improvements in the supply chain and logistics can bridge this gap. An integrated supply chain (including the cold supply chain) can save more than ₨ 300 Billion for the country. This along with saving perishable horticulture produce should be an incentive to develop logistics infrastructure in a country like India plagued with inflation and
In the case of India, the growing economy now requires a boost in its logistics services to keep the goods flowing at an increasing rate. The logistics field is now estimated at a value of more than $US14 billion, with further growth envisioned. Logistics-related services in India encompass transportation of goods by air, land, waterway, and
Discounts that may be related with amount of quantities purchased. If this discount relates to transport then both the shipper and customer will benefit. Place generally refers to which distribution channel to adopt. The marketing department’s concern will be to decide which agent to deal with; whether to sell to wholesalers, retailers or even directly to customers. This decision will affect the decisions or actions that logistics decides to take. Wholesalers buy in bulk and usually places orders in a consistent manner. However, retailers usually buy in small quantities and usually places orders inconsistently and require short lead times. Logistics will then be tasked with the duty of finding fast and responsive means of transportation to meet these needs. In addition, a company might spend a lot of resources in promoting its product and attracting customers. The department responsible for promotion must collaborate with the logistics department to make sure that there is enough inventory to meet the demand that sometimes may not be too certain following intense advertising. Moreover, marketing department may be deciding on the physical attributes of a new product; its size, weight, shape and other dimensions. These decisions will affect the ability of logistics to move and store these goods and even the overall profitability of the firm. If the packaging is too cumbersome and bulky, this could mean
Logistics is a concept used to define issues and arrangements related to transportation of products from the supplier to the buyer across international borders (Trepins S50). Current global trends have seen an upsurge of freight traffic as companies seek raw materials from middle to low income countries. On the other hand, many companies are seeking to diversify their target markets making it possible to send thei...
Outsourcing is the final option for logistics management. When this happens, transportation firms concentrate on logistics, and the company can concentrate on it’s production. There are many cost savings using this type of program, however that lack of control can negatively effect many companies.
In the business industry every organization focus on the customer demand which is important factor for them to deliver right product to right customer at right time to increase firms repute, customer service and firms profitability which whole the process supported by supply chain process and logistics services. The third party logistics (3PL) is an independent organization which performs a lots of logistics functions on the request of the purchaser company. Basically the 3PL is not take ownership of the product but they are liable to deliver right product at right time to the customer. Further the relationships between whole the supply chain parties are helpful and beneficial for the entire partners. Moreover, the fourth party logistics
Supply chain management has been defined as that process that involves the management of information, materials, and all the finances that are handled within and across the entire supply chain process (Christopher, 2016). The management is usually done through out the entire supply chain management from that moment when the suppliers are involved through all the manufacturing activities, different distribution activities, and the way that the products are served to the final product consumer (Turban, et al., 2002). The process also includes all the activities that different organizations offers to their customers as after sale services for purposes perfecting their services and products towards their highly valued customers (Christopher,
This is the activity carried out by organizations that own production sites, and their performance has a major impact on product cost, quality, speed of delivery and delivery reliability, and flexibility [8]. As it is quite an important part of the supply chain, production needs to be measured and continuously improved. Suitable metrics for the production level are as follows. Order lead-time, the total order cycle time, called order to delivery cycle time, refers to the time elapsed in between the receipt of customer order until the delivery of finished goods to the customer. The reduction in order cycle time leads to reduction in supply chain response time, and as such is an important performance measure and source of competitive advantage [9]. It directly interacts with customer service in determining competitiveness. Range of product and services: According to [8] a plant that manufactures a broad product range is likely to introduce new products more slowly than plants with a narrow product range. Plants that can manufacture a wide range of products are likely to perform less well in the areas of value added per employee, speed and delivery reliability. This clearly suggests that product range affects supply chain performance. Effectiveness of scheduling techniques is another important measure of supply chain effectiveness. Scheduling refers to the time or date on or by which