Many companies strive for greater digitization in supply chain management to make logistics and delivery processes more efficient and robust. However, collecting large amounts of data is not enough anymore. The data and processes are too complex. “Smart applications” are therefore needed to reliably forecast sales and demand, optimize procurement processes and inventories, and reliably plan production.
Where do you see the greatest benefit in digitizing your supply chain?
In which areas do you currently face the greatest challenges in your company?
Customer survey from Staufen.Inova as part of the event series “Supply Chain Analytics & Digital Supply Chain Management” (September 2020)
Manual data entry and maintenance not only causes an enormous amount of work, but is also prone to errors and rarely results in up-to-date data sets. Employees still type up paper lists, manually transfer data between systems, and laboriously gather information or retrieve it from huge spreadsheets. With such data chaos, it is almost impossible to gain meaningful insights to optimize planning and improve decision-making.
Digital improvement potential
Digital data acquisition and interfaces between systems ensure a uniform, up-to-date and error-free database as well as smooth data flows. Intelligent applications are able to evaluate data in a targeted manner and optimize planning. This reduces the workload of employees, who can concentrate fully on decision-making and problem-solving. The system provides concrete indications of where action is needed and clearly presented data to make their work easier.
Observed practice
Supply chain management requires cooperation from different departments such as purchasing, logistics, production and sales. Therefore, process chains are long and many employees are involved. Accordingly, the need for coordination is great. Employees spend a lot of time in meetings and often have to ask questions by e-mail or phone. As a result, they take a long time to narrow down problems or make decisions. Along the entire process chain, delays occur again and again because information is missing.
Digital improvement potential
Digital applications manage data-based process control by automatically initiating the next processing steps and providing employees with all necessary information. At a glance, managers can see where and why parts are missing or how a future order will affect inventory. This means that less coordination and queries are necessary. Employees can make better and faster decisions. The entire company gains in agility.
Observed practice
For many decisions, employees lack a reliable foundation for decision-making. They simply do not know all the connections and dependencies:
Does a new order affect the ability to deliver to regular customers?
Is it a market opportunity that should be taken advantage of, or is it impossible to fulfill the order at all due to production capacities?
Ultimately, they do not make decisions based on data and insights gained from them, but rather according to a gut feeling or empirical values – and thus only rarely in an optimal manner.
Digital improvement potential
Digital solutions create transparency. They calculate re-procurement independently and provide employees with concrete recommendations for action in various scenarios as well as an overview of the effects of decisions. This enables the sales department to provide more precise delivery dates. Purchasing procures the required materials and raw materials in a timely manner. Production plans the necessary machine capacities at an early stage. All in all, the interaction between the departments improves considerably.
Observed practice
Only planning with ERP systems and Excel is often not capable of mapping complex processes in most companies. Sales, demand, and production planning are thus insufficiently coordinated. Any disruptions cause long interruptions in production because they require laborious rescheduling. Since minor disruptions in particular are common, employees operate more or less permanently in crisis mode.
Digital improvement potential
“Smart” applications that use AI techniques such as machine learning and mathematical optimization through operations research create optimized sales, demand, and production plans. These are already very robust by design, but also enable fast and perfectly adapted response to faults.
Observed practice
Poor planning often catches companies off guard with large safety stockpiles that cost a lot to transport, pack, and store. However, companies do not always have the right items in stock, and they do not always last indefinitely, so they will have to be discarded at some point.
Digital improvement potential
Digitally supported sales and demand forecasts can optimize safety stock levels. The company reduces its costs and prevents wasting goods, packaging materials, and energy. Self-set sustainability goals are much easier to achieve.
CONCLUSION
Many companies have now realized that they can reduce costs, increase delivery reliability, and improve production quality with digital solutions in supply chain management. This does not require companies to reinvent the wheel or develop applications on their own. Corresponding solutions are available on the market and deliver very good results after a short time.
Actually, there are no more excuses to postpone digitization of supply chain management any longer. Nevertheless, digitization projects in supply chain management are not making any headway. The top 5 reasons for this are lack of resources, lack of expertise, lack of time, lack of digitization knowledge, and a lack of digital culture. This is where the experts at Staufen can provide support.
What are currently the biggest obstacles in why digitization projects in your company are not progressing (fast enough)?
CURRENT AND FUTURE TRAININGS OF THIS TRAINER III. Train-the-Trainer to become a lean trainer Operational Excellence in SME | Albrecht Jung live Material in flow | SEW-EURODRIVE live II. Lean Logistics I. Basic training as a Lean Expert Canan Jungel was during her dual bachelor studies as an executive assistant for the international freight forwarding company Gerner + Kahle GmbH responsible for operational logistics improvements. As a master‘s degree candidate Canan Jungel contributed to the development and introduction of the Lean Logistics Seminar for Staufen Academy. Since 2014 Canan Jungel is working as an Lean Consultant and Trainer at the Staufen AG. Since then she is nationally and internationally implementing lean transformation projects with the focus for lean processes and lean logistics operations. Furthermore as a Coach she is implementing and stabilizing Shop Floor Management in various branches. Within the Staufen Academy she is responsible for trainings within the public program, internal qualification and international training standards. Besides that she designs and conducts successfully customer specific qualification and training programs.
Thomas Spiess has broad experience in precision-, luxury- and consumer goods- as well as textile and fashion industry. Besides his long-standing project management- and leadership experience in global Supply Chain Management, Thomas Spiess also has long-standing experience with challenging global supply chain projects. Amongst others he was responsible for the concept and development of an European duty-free warehouse including improvement of inbound- and outbound transport, relocation of production from Western to Eastern Europe and to Asia with improvement of the production- and sourcing network. Thanks to the large international leadership- and moderation experience Thomas Spiess achieved also cross-cultural excellent results. Thomas Spiess has been working for Staufen Inova since 2015.
Ole Trumpfheller from DB Schenker is convinced: customers and service-providers must adopt a collaborative approach to guarantee a secure and scheduled movement of goods in the future.
We are thoroughly knowledgeable about the supply-chain matrix and have a solid command of every level of its requirements. We support you in optimizing your supply-chain processes, structures and networks, and in doing so we always focus on achieving the ideal output for the entire process. By initially focusing on fast and sustainable successes in pilot areas, we create a momentum towards change that optimizes the entire process.
