The critical process of supply chain control tower integration orchestration

In a 2018 survey of global supply chain executives, 21.8% stated that lack of visibility was the worst challenge they faced. The proportion for data management was the lowest, coming in at 1.3%, while the percentage for changing customer demand was the second highest, at 19.7%. Everyone who experienced the pandemic saw supply chain issues, such as a lack of toilet paper in supermarkets and N95 masks and other medical supplies. COVID-19 drew attention to the problems with the current global supply chains.

Additionally, businesses are under more pressure to provide high-quality goods, services, and customer experiences at reasonable pricing amid declining client loyalty. Given these circumstances, supply chain teams must understand what is happening in their supply chain right now, why it is happening, and how to promptly address it before minor disruptions turn into significant, expensive issues.

Thus, supply chain control towers provide the visibility required for organizations navigating this complexity.

In addition, the supply chain control tower is a hub with the necessary technologies and integration process that helps to use data across supply chain verticals to provide enhanced visibility for short- and long-term decision-making processes.

A supply chain control tower can gather and analyze end-to-end data across the whole supply chain in real-time. When implemented correctly, it offers a tailored data presentation of important business KPIs and events along the supply chain. With the aid of the supply chain control tower, companies can instantly identify, prioritize, and address critical concerns.

Supply chain control tower: What is it?

A supply chain control tower provides a comprehensive center with all organizational and technological capabilities and processes needed to collect data from every end-to-end supply chain stage.

Through predictive analytics, the control tower uses real-time data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of every supply chain. Its processes are essential to enhance efficiency throughout your supply chain network. Regardless of your supply chain network’s complexity, you can function efficiently and effectively with the help of supply chain control towers. Acquired information increases the significant advantages for customers while reducing expensive exceptions.

Systems used in the supply chain are dispersed and based on many technological stacks and platforms, including cloud and on-premises. In addition to the architectural components, many firms are now automating their supply chains with digital technology elements like IoT, AI, and analytics. Digitalization currently offers a variety of capabilities inside the supply chain ecosystem, including inbound and outgoing logistics visibility, cooperative order management, inventory visibility, and management, communal supply and demand planning, and more.

The three main advantages of supply chain control towers are visibility, analytics and decision-making, and process orchestration. In addition, organizations may now link to their complete supply network thanks to the development of supply chain control towers, which have enabled increased supply chain visibility, cooperation, and optimization.

Supply chain tower process

A top-notch control tower will assist firms in streamlining operations or supply chain management while boosting resilience and overall agility. The supply chain tower controls how materials and products move along the supply chain. There are various supply chain tower process types. Each of these procedures has distinctive qualities and is appropriate for multiple types of enterprises. The supply chain tower process includes: 

1. Identify and prioritize business objectives

A high-level supply chain evaluation is required to establish if current processes and enablers follow the supply chain strategy. As part of the assessment process, the flow of materials and information through the supply chain must be shown as supply chain nodes and connections. To identify the key challenges and corporate objectives of the control tower program. The objectives stated in this phase will guide establishing priorities in the subsequent stage, including considerable investigation.

If you implement a control tower, you may anticipate total supply chain optimization and most of the enablers required to back up your decisions. Control tower goals can be set by taking into account the ensuing expectations.

● Alerts, notifications, and exceptions

● Simulation

● Collaboration

● Performance dashboards

● Capacity

● People

2. Analyze, identify, and create a plan of action

In this process, we can review all organizational business processes, systems, and capabilities (past, present, and future), prepare a control tower readiness report, and store it for later use. Prioritization, design, and execution are all things we can undertake in this process. During this process, the following tasks must be completed:

● Examine critical company operations and enterprise systems (current and future).

● The high-level data flow architecture and system interfaces should be identified.

● Define the data structures for the relevant interfaces.

● Think about system maintainability, the total cost of ownership, and IT strategy alignment. Non-Juniper.

● Response plan for the control tower.

3. Supporting decisions

Now that transactions are being carried out within the control tower, users are making choices based on suggestions from intelligent agents. Implementing a control tower differs slightly from a conventional ERP, WMS, etc. However, the control tower requires a comprehensive understanding of supply chain performance and is data intensive. Their requirements and some cutting-edge prospects for supply chain optimization must be considered.

Supply chain leaders must be strongly involved in the design stage.

4. Ongoing development

The following tasks must be carried out consistently throughout this phase to ensure control tower   functionality and optimization:

● The realization of benefits after implementation.

● Continually evaluate value generation by keeping an eye on KPIs.

● Contributes to the road map’s recommendations for improving capability maturity.

Importance of integration orchestration as the vital pillar of the supply chain control tower

i. Companies can access all they need about their supply chain at any time and from any place owing to sophisticated analytics, early warning systems, shipment monitoring, real-time event tracking, and real-time data sharing with partners.

ii. When properly orchestrated, supply chain integration provides the agility and resilience many businesses found they lacked in the wake of the pandemic’s outbreak.

iii. A vital component of the orchestrated supply chain is advanced technology. For instance, control towers are at the heart of many different technologies. They integrate with the internet of things (IoT) sensors, sensing tools like web analytics services and social media mining, and a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), transportation, and warehouse management systems to consolidate numerous data points from across the organization’s supply chain and the broader ecosystem and offer near-real-time visibility into suppliers, third-party logistics providers, manufacturing facilities, and other entities outside the organization.

iv. End-to-end supply chain orchestration is essential in helping businesses recover revenue lost due to the various outside events that negatively impact the timely delivery of goods. In addition to assisting businesses in preparing for the next generational catastrophe, it also enables them to respond more effectively to the ever-more-common disruptions, including power outages, storms, wildfires, port congestion, train disruptions, container shortages, and other logistical delays. Companies with a well-organized supply chain are better positioned to confront the future with the assurance that their increased agility and resilience will see them through even the most difficult circumstances.

Advantages of a supply chain control tower

A supply is the strength of your organization’s supply chain by offering end-to-end visibility, decision support, and swift course correction. Additionally, a robust supply chain can minimize the effects of disruptions or quickly recover from them when they happen. The main advantages of a supply chain control tower are as follows:

• Total supply chain transparency. The organizations can proactively manage their supply chains, which lowers risks and total costs of your company operations, by having visibility throughout the whole supply chain, which includes suppliers, manufacturers, transporters, warehouses, and third-party logistics (3PLs).

• More effective forecasting and decision-making accuracy. The capability of predictive analytics to integrate, extend, and combine data leads to better, more automated decision-making and self-correction, which improves operations and eliminates waste. Predictive analytics may also be used to identify patterns in the data.

• Greater agility in the supply chain. When the unexpected occurs, agile supply networks can change course. This agility results from better client experiences, quicker response times, and a more effective supply chain.

• Improved supply chain cooperation. Cross-organizational cooperation is facilitated by a supply chain system that links partners, suppliers, and logistical service providers. Because of the opportunity to discuss problems with partners directly, issues are resolved more quickly, expenses are reduced, customers are more satisfied, and partners and talent are retained longer.

• Ideal stock levels. Supply chain control towers offer insight on inventory across the whole network to ensure businesses have what they need. As a result, they boost sales and profits while decreasing stock-outs, material shortages, and inventory holdings.

How do control towers for supply chains operate?

Everything in a supply chain control tower is driven by data, including entering valid data, appropriately and effectively processing it, presenting it in a meaningful way, and using it to enable well-informed, optimal decision-making. Your outcomes will be better if your supply chain control tower utilizes more accurate and complete data.

A supply chain control tower:

● Provides real-time information and insights by automatically gathering and integrating structured and unstructured data from all supply chain points, including RFID, remote sensors, and the internet of things (IoT).

● Provides current information via user-friendly dashboards that deliver insights into vital operational tasks, including product creation, order administration, inventory planning, production, and more, by combining that data with logic.

● Use fine-grained visibility to increase responsiveness to tactical and operational interruptions. Additionally, it can forecast potential future events. Supply chain teams can anticipate and prioritize problems because they move swiftly.

● Supports self-correction and automated decision-making, mainly because of the capability of tracing errors back to their root causes. Also, AI and machine learning enable this ongoing learning, sensing, responding, and improvement.

● Facilitates the creation of procedural books by stakeholders that specify how to address specific supply chain planning problems. Supply chain teams can access these books when a problem is found to help streamline and standardize their response.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember that every industry and social segment has different objectives and that not all control tower technologies are made equal. For every firm control, towers represent a path toward increased visibility and comprehension. These innovations have transformed the supply chain and will continue to do so.

Control towers are ultimately an essential first step in creating a digital counterpart of the physical supply chain. For some readers, the amount of information in this article may be overwhelming. I do, however, hope you enjoyed reading about the supply chain control tower. Please share with your network so they can also benefit from the information given.

About the author:

Arindam Mukherjee is an IT supply chain architect and published author in leading supply chain publications. He can be reached at [email protected].

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