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AI in supply chain automation is gradually reshaping how core functions operate, particularly in procurement, warehousing, and logistics. Key Insight: The use of AI in supply chain automation is producing tangible benefits across procurement, warehousing, and logistics.
They integrate AI into demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and logistics operations to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and mitigate risks. Excess inventory, stockouts, and increased transportation expenses are common consequences of outdated planning methods. Amazon is a leader in AI-driven supply chain management.
While SAP has had procurement analytics solutions, last year at Spend Connect Live, SAP announced the Spend Control Tower. Daniel Chapman, the senior director of process transformation for procure to pay at Warner Music, was a keynote speaker. This solution provides insights in a much easier way to digest.
Procurement and supply chain management are often used interchangeably—but in practice, the lines between them can blur in ways that create real friction. Misaligned priorities, siloed systems, and unclear ownership can directly impact key performance indicators like cost savings percentage and procurement cycle time.
Supply Chain Knowledge and Risk Mitigation: Suppliers have a direct impact on direct spend with raw material and transportation costs as two big drivers of operating margins. An example of this is Vendor Management Inventory and Capacity Collaboration for contract manufacturing.
For example, if I improve the cost structure in transportation, procurement, manufacturing and sales independently, what decision support framework decides the right trade-offs? In current systems where Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) and Transportation Management (TMS) are different models, alignment is impossible.
Just-in-time (JIT) inventory models, lean supplier networks, and offshore manufacturing reduced expenses but left companies exposed to disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing geopolitical shifts demonstrated the risks of relying on single-source suppliers and minimal inventory buffers. Resilience is now taking precedence.
Direct Procurement : Milk is collected directly from farmers at the village level. Milk Processing : After collection, milk is transported to regional processing plants, where it is pasteurized and packaged. This empowers them to have a stake in the business and share profits. through net-enabled kiosks in the villages.
Despite the evolution of technology, none of the 28 industry segments I follow can drive improvement at the intersection of operating margin and inventory turns. Change is Hard. Unlearning is Tougher. While many might see the issue as change management, I think that the journey must start with unlearning. The industry is full of experts.
Functional excellence throws the supply chain out of balance decreasing results on a balanced scorecard of growth, margin, inventory turns, customer service and ROIC (Return on Invested Capital). One of the alignment gaps that is growing and is unfortunate is the gap between procurement and manufacturing.
The most common trading partner collaborative processes covered in MSCN suites are purchase order/procurement collaboration, demand forecast collaboration and the transportation shipper tender/carrier accept process. For SAP, good planning relies on robust collaboration.
Planners are uniquely positioned with an end-to-end focus, from procurement of materials, through manufacturing and engineering, to the movement, storage, and delivery of finished products or services. Supply chain professionals use various tools, including supply chain modeling, inventory management, and forecasting.
Leveling up your inventory life cycle can be crucial, but keeping all the fundamental factors jumping is essential to let the life cycle evolve. However, if the life cycle stock is healthy, inventory management is smooth. Inventory management revolves around the pivotal concept of the product life cycle. Click here!
Political instability has disrupted transportation corridors. Sudden tariff increases can quickly make a cost-optimized procurement strategy untenable, leaving companies scrambling to adjust. Procurement is another area seeing change. Trade tensions have led to abrupt tariff hikes.
Shorter shelf life or more limited inventory of natural colorants may lead to shorter production runs and increased batch frequency. Companies may need to revise inventory strategies and adjust procurement lead times accordingly. Cold chain infrastructure may be necessary for both raw material and finished goods transport.
Today begins our series about electronic data interchange or EDI in transportation. In this series, we will first talk about how EDI in transportation works and what it is, covering the history of EDI in transportation, the definition, how it works technically, and then some common EDI codes used within the transportation industry.
While consumers may see some short-term benefit in the form of discounted goods, many retailers have had to reset investor expectations , reflecting the expected hit on margins from carrying so much inventory. Inventory management is challenging enough in normal times. So, what is it going to take to enable better inventory management?
The explosion in globalisation, and corresponding reduction in transport availability over the last decade or so, have together kiboshed some of the factors which once fueled a steady growth in offshore manufacture and procurement. Let me show you why. Understanding the Basics: What is Nearshoring?
Supply chain efficiency is the cornerstone of success and involves the effective management of processes, resources, and technologies from procurement to production, transportation to warehousing. In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducing inventory costs and delivery times.
Ask a procurement or transportation professional if they have a good demand signal and expect a laugh. Technology can automate role-based views up and down the river of demand for all roles: marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing, procurement, transportation, and human resources. The impact is exponential.
Decoding the Procurement Department: A Comprehensive Guide to Roles and Responsibilities This supply chain article provides a comprehensive overview of the procurement department within an organization. Read In Detail About Procurement Department Here 2.
New technologies revolutionizing transportation are creating tremendous opportunities but also unprecedented challenges for tire manufacturers. Provide procurement more negotiation power with suppliers of materials and services, as well as the ability to automate purchasing and production decisions based on real-time price and market data.
Use of optimization to consume planned orders into manufacturing scheduling and distribution requirements planning (including inventory optimization of safety stock). Use of order patterns to execute a route guide in Transportation Planning (TMS)–route planning, pooling of less than truckload, and load tender.
There is no unifying data model to align procurement and manufacturing, transportation and distribution, revenue management and demand planning, or sales account teams with supply chain planning. The third step is to do a data inventory. Rules engines, learning models, and agentic AI need to be built around what drives value.
Do Embrace Technology and Data : Use real-time data for demand forecasting, inventory management, and route optimization. Do Set Clear KPIs and Governance Structures : Establish transparent metrics for sales, coverage, and service levels. Regular reviews and joint business planning foster accountability and trust.
The key to Zara’s ability to establish an agile Supply Chain rests on the following unique approaches: Procurement Methodology: Zara’s Procurement team doesn’t work on the number of finished clothes but on the quantity of raw materials needed to manufacture the clothes. Zara’s Supply Chain Approach. Spare Capacity.
Koganti urged the procurement audience to look for whats referred to as “foresight function” in planning tools, which is capable of enhancing data analysis, scenario generation and trend identification , allowing for more informed and proactive decision-making, albeit with human oversight.
My definition of a network is the bi-directional information exchange of manufacturing, procurement, quality, and transportation signals across multiple tiers of trading partners in a many-to-many trading partner information exchange with minimal latency. Today, this network operates with less capacity and ballooning inventories.
In our work with Georgia Tech using data from 1982-2023, we find that the R² of the Regression analysis of Cost-of-Goods Sold/Inventory Turns when compared to correlations of Operating Margin/Inventory turns to Market Capitalization/employee is 40-65% lower. For additional insights check out our presentation at Informs.
Boost Your Business Profits with Efficient Procurement and Inventory Management Software Are you searching for ways to enhance your business’s profitability? One area with significant potential for improvement is procurement. It involves building and managing strong relationships with suppliers.
And even before they begin, they must realize these problems are too big for any single team—supply chain must connect with finance and procurement to treat the n-tier suppliers as an extended part of their network and become their preferred customer. For this to happen, finance needs to be in lockstep with procurement.
It can look like using supply chain finance as a lever to free up cash flow, and it can also look like allocating resources toward initiatives such as geographical diversification, the creation of inventory buffers, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. ” • Evaluate and adjust procurement category strategic responsibilities.
In order to achieve this, demand planning, inventory planning, supply planning via procurement and/or production planning, along with fulfilment/allocation and even transportation planning need to be integrated. DC procurement is also automated by aggregating the needs of the MFCs.
Smart inventory allocation and deployment starts with the right digital supply chain platform. For most businesses, the past two years have been a much-needed teaching moment on the state of their inventory planning, tracking, and management capabilities. Decades-old, tried-and-true rules ?
In 2025, efficient spare parts inventory management is no longer a competitive advantage — it’s a business necessity. Yet for many organizations, spare parts inventory remains a critical blind spot. Obsolete stock, fragmented procurement workflows, and disconnected data only make the challenge harder.
For managed transportation services, a best of breed transportation management system is at the heart of the service. This is much less common than contract logistics or even managed transportation. This model comes from a partnership between GEP and Eliant Inventory Solutions.
What Contractors Need to Streamline Procurement in 2025 By Ian Summers (pictured) Content Writer 111 Views You’re on-site before dawn, the framing crew’s ready, but the steel shipment’s stuck in limbo, the invoice isn’t approved, and your project management app just pinged you for the fourth time.
Supply chain optimization software tracks items as they move through your supply chain and generate alerts at important points to improves decision-making and enhance visibility across the supply chain by integrating various capabilities like procurement, inventory, and customer relationship management.
Inventories in the chemical industry are at record lows: a forerunner of bad days ahead. While we will recover quickly in retail (moving from painful shortages to a glut of inventory), the chemical industry–sitting four and five layers back in the supply chain–takes longer to recover. Retail shelves are increasingly empty.
FourKites CEO, Matt Elenjickal One of the two leaders in the real-time transportation visibility market is FourKites. Shipment/inventory tracking can tell you whether a shipment will be on time, but not whether everything that was supposed to be on that shipment is there. That is fast growth. How Do You Spell ROI?
The Approach to Effective Freight Procurement by LSCMS Shippers’ Council Container shipping procurement faces a multitude of challenges shaped by global events, industry shifts, environmental mandates, and technological advancements. At the heart of it all, an effective procurement strategy remains paramount.
We explore the concept of holistic inventory strategies focused on the form and function of inventory. In the process, we learn that only 15-20% of inventories are safety stock and that the current APS frameworks do not enable a holistic analysis of the form and function of inventory. I think that the answer is no.
While the performance rankings were based on comparisons of inventory turns, operating margin and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) for the periods of 2006-2013 and 2009-2013, the concept is that to be a supply chain leader you must outperform and drive improvement. Can you help us with what you see in the data?” ” Yes, I said.
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