As difficult as the pandemic years have been, they have surely taught the world a plethora of lessons. Not least of these, especially for businesses, is understanding the importance of a robust supply chain.
If your company builds or manufactures anything at all, you know how critical your supply chain is for the continuity of your business operations. One small glitch, one missing part, one delayed shipment, can set you back significantly.
It is therefore more important than ever before to ensure that a company’s supply chain management is strong. And taking a data-led approach to it can save you a lot of heartache – not to mention money – down the line!
At UNCOMPLICATE.AI, we focus on four core components to help our clients navigate supply chain pitfalls and harness the full benefits of their data. Each of these can be tackled independently or together, as the need may be.
1. Visibility
As they say, identifying a problem is half the solution. Probably the more important half! The same is true for supply chain as well. Therefore, we advise our clients to start with ensuring they are bringing together all the disparate data inputs that have a bearing on the overall supply chain performance. This includes everything – procurement, logistics, production, inventory, sales, delivery, quality, SLAs, stockouts, returns etc.
The difficult part is stitching these often-diverse data types into a single universal data foundation. But whenever we have done it, we have been able to unlock a multitude of hitherto unseen KPIs and metrics that shed a bright light on the overall health of the supply chain, gaps that exist, and challenges that need to be addressed.
2. Demand Planning
There is no crystal ball to predict what your demand is going to be next month or next quarter or next year. Except, there sort of is! Using AI, demand forecasting can be done much more accurately than dated time series methods that most organizations still continue to depend on.
At UNCOMPLICATE.AI, we have developed a comprehensive Demand Forecasting Module that helps optimize inventory costs, reduce wastage, and eliminate stock-outs.
We have consistently been able to deliver 5-20% improvement in the accuracy of demand forecasts for our clients.
3. Efficient Procurement
Procurement is usually treated as a mundane task with little scope for innovation or improvement. However, with deep visibility and the correct insights, procurement can be made much more efficient than is usually assumed. In fact, very often, it can be turned into a business’s strategic differentiator. Imagine the margin improvements you can get if you are able to significantly reduce costs simply by buying smarter.
We empower our clients to buy smarter by enabling them to consistently buy the right product, at the right time, from the right supplier, at the right price, with the right quality.
4. Risk Assessment
Last, but by no means the least, is to ensure you are correctly assessing and addressing the inherent risks within your supply chain. Supply chain disruptions wreaked havoc across the globe during the Covid pandemic as suppliers under colossal economic duress went under or were unable to meet their supply commitments. Such occurrences don’t just happen during extreme events like the pandemic, but are much more regular than one would imagine.
Therefore, it’s important to continuously monitor the financial, operational, geo-political, natural and other risks that could impact your supply chain. As always, this boils down to your ability to leverage internal and external data assets. UNCOMPLICATE.AI has a holistic approach to supply chain risk management that goes beyond cookie-cutter risk measurement tools, thereby adding considerable efficiency for our clients.
Are you ready to start thinking more strategically about your own supply chain aspects? Give us a shout at hello@uncomplicate.ai and we will help you work your way through your supply chain AI adoption journey.
Comments