Streamlining the Supply Chain Management

As the title suggests, streamlining is the art of improving the processing capability of any business or organization by eradicating the unnecessary procedures. With the procurement process getting complicated for the companies, they are looking forward to reduce the overall cost. So, analysing, and streamlining the supply chain is the only way to help respond more quickly to market changes while at the same time boosting its own operational efficiency.
So, here are some of the useful steps that can result in more efficient, profitable and flexible operations.
Optimising the Supply Chain Process
A high-level process review for documenting the current state of business, and identifying different ways to streamline supply chain operations is essential. The process of integrating supply chains can help point out specific areas, where the problems are occurring along the process, thus enabling businesses to take quick action to further reduce costs and pass savings to the customers.
Integrating Supply Chain Data
Every transaction process characteristically touches several systems, including sales forecasts, enterprise resource management system, financial systems and manufacturing resource planning systems. In many cases, information also needs to be shared with parallel systems owned by partners, suppliers and customers. So, to sort out this, within the medium and small business, data integration is traditionally done through the file (i.e. xls) uploads, manual updates, batch updates or spreadsheet uploads. All of these processes are time consuming and error prone. So, by adding an integration layer, information flows can be automated, and shared more quickly and effectively.
Elimination of Duplicate Data
Elimination of duplicate data processes saves labor hours as well as time, and the resulting system is easier to maintain. With the advent of technology, tablets and smartphones have taken over the work culture of the workplaces, so, data entry can be done in any instant, thus speeding up information flow and improving the customer service.
Gearing-Up Existing Systems
Many in-house systems, developed over the years, are obsolete now, and can be inflexible, complex, hard to use, and challenging to integrate with newer systems. But much of the data collected by them can still be useful for planning & analysis.
Think Beyond the Horizon
Streamlining supply chains help businesses look beyond strategic order fulfilment and gain a better understanding of the future customer needs. Analysing and streamlining the supply chain is an overall learning process, that not only enhances the product deliveries today, but also improves customer service in the future. Streamlining the global supply chain provides opportunities to increase the efficiency of the entire product life cycle. So, by optimizing production lines and improving the accuracy of demand forecasts and schedules, companies are becoming more flexible and profitable.
But at the end having a better understanding of supply chain processes and data management is the only key to unlock the above mentioned hacks.

                                                                                                                         Sagar Bhattacharjee

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