The complexity and unpredictability of requirements make the supply chains most difficult to manage. One proven way to increase the reliability and responsiveness of supply chains is to increase visibility into everyday supply chain functions. Supply Chain Visibility (SCV) is the capability of a supply chain player to have access to or to provide the timely required information/ knowledge about the entities involved in the supply chain from/to relevant supply chain partners for better decision support. The aim is to provide controlled access and transparency to accurate, timely and complete events and data — transactions, content and relevant supply chain information — within and across organizations and services operating supply chains.
The need for visibility is driven by both the desire to improve the supply chain and the need for compliance from the customer and legislative requirement, especially for those who are operating globally. Visibility is often included in the risk management toolkit. By coupling process changes, the improved intelligence from supply chain visibility, and fast decision cycles, organizations hope to out-maneuver interruptions in the flow of material, capital, or information. Here are some tips to help enable end-to-end visibility across your enterprise:
- Sense and respond are critical processes for supply chain visibility and can only be achieved through a collaborative network that is coupled with advanced analytics.
- Visibility encompasses not only sensing data, but also how to analyze it and take appropriate action across the extended enterprise. Use predictive and prescriptive analytics to support your visibility goals.
- Eliminate silos within your organization to take full advantage of end-to-end visibility. Create an outside-in way of thinking within your organization by focusing on customers and trading partners instead of looking internally.
- Utilize cloud-based shared process and information layers within your information architecture to sit above physical assets, supply chain, and operational applications.
- Make it easy for trading partners to connect by eliminating barriers to on-boarding.
Unfortunately achieving visibility is quite difficult, particularly for global supply chains. Many different companies and individuals are involved in a global supply chain, and all are operating under a different set of motivations and constraints. Although a supply chain feeds a specific customer outcome, each participant is focused on their own self-interest. They all want to maximize their own profit, even at the cost of the rest of the supply chain, a typical capitalistic behavior.
Asprova makes sure that information is available smartly at your disposal and to other firms in your supply chain which improves visibility dramatically. Our advanced planning and scheduling functions has the ability to “see” from one end to the other in the supply chain, providing players a clear view of upstream and downstream inventories, demand and supply conditions, and production and purchasing schedules.