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To build an outside-in model, and use new forms of analytics, we must start the discussion with the question of, “what drives value?” ” Traditional planning modelsoptimize functional processes to improve cost and customer service. At the top of the model is a balanced scorecard.
Optimizing fulfillment requires a series of steps to get a shipment from its source to the end customer. The formula for OTIF is: Measuring a supply chain against OTIF metrics is a key strategy that helps decision makers attach a tangible value to the success of their fulfillment and allows them to determine key strategies.
The industry has had little value from digital transformation and business networks. Most of the business networks were hollowed out by venture capitalists or purchased by opportunists. The business network market is in need of innovation.) Or that a focus on cost reduction can actually undermine value creation?)
Three months into 2025, we have seen a barrage of on-again, off-again tariffs that have supply chain and logistics teams reeling, as they must rethink everything from next weeks shipping route to their foundational networkmodels. With the global e-commerce market predicted to reach $8.1 The Ukraine-Russia conflict is ongoing.
Enterprise procurement teams face growing pressure to deliver strategic value – managing supplier risk, ensuring compliance, and supporting sustainability – all without sacrificing speed or control. This blog explores the most common challenges in digital procurement and the capabilities that matter most.
Green Logistics: Optimizing transportation routes, consolidating shipments, and employing energy-efficient vehicles to reduce emissions. These initiatives also lead to cost savings by maximizing load capacity and reducing fuel consumption. Advanced route optimization tools further support these goals.
GEP and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Supply Chain Resource Cooperative surveyed supply chain, procurement and IT professionals across a range of industries to gain insight into their priorities and strategies regarding supply chain resilience and optimization. Business Spend Management Solutions are Networked .
Enterprise procurement leaders are under more pressure than ever—juggling cost control, compliance, supplier risk, and internal complexity, all while trying to modernize outdated systems. AI, automation, and generative tools are redefining efficiency, allowing procurement teams to move from reactive to proactive decision-making.
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. As companies across industries have discovered, a well-optimized supply chain can drive significant improvements throughout their operations.
The trade with Asia we take for granted today was only possible by mitigating a significant supply chain trade-off – reducing costs without appreciable impacts to quality and service. Supply chain optimization has also improved in significant ways that can address these trade-offs better than before.
If you’re evaluating procurement technology or exploring ways to drive more value from existing systems, chances are you’re looking beyond tactical fixes – you want a smarter, scalable strategy. Misaligned priorities across finance, legal, and procurement create friction that delays decision-making and reduces impact.
Traditionally, procurement has been a process weighed down by manual tasks, fragmented systems, and endless paperwork. Today, procurement is undergoing a transformation. While procurement teams have long worked to add strategic value, Artificial Intelligence (AI) amplifies their impact.
However, recent disruptions have highlighted the vulnerabilities of these complex networks, resulting in significant financial losses for companies. It is crucial for organizations to understand the importance of Purchase Order collaboration to effectively manage their direct spend, optimize operations, and mitigate risks.
But between rising costs, complex logistics, and the constant struggle to optimize space and labor, staying ahead can feel like an uphill battle. That’s where warehouse optimization comes in. Here’s what you can expect: A clear definition of warehouse optimization and its core components. Ready to get started?
Procurement and Supply Chain Management are essential functions that can help companies navigate these challenges, but they are often siloed and operate in separate departments. Their metrics are often misaligned as well – supply chain focuses on service and procurement focuses on the cost of acquiring materials and services.
I see a preponderance of reports and white papers that have lots of pages but say little. Optimization engines to improve functional metric performance resulted in an exploding number of planners. days to receive a purchase order confirmation. The average purchased order changes 3.5 Reduce Data Latency in Networks.
The consulting team pitches a theme–vision of supply chain best practices, big data analytics, or demand-driven value networks– to the executive team, and a new project is initiated. Companies adopt planning to optimize the organization’s response from the customer’s customer to the supplier’s supplier.
Supply chain execution is required to distinguish between the high runner purchases and the slower-moving products customers are willing to wait for. In a study of logistics providers conducted by Fraunhofer IML, only 36% of organizations reported having a clear overall plan for digital transformation.
But companies often have diverging incentives and interests from their supply chain partners, so when they independently strive to optimize their individual objectives, the expected result can be compromised. ”. I think about this discussion with Keith often as I work on the Supply Chain Index and edit the chapters of Metrics That Matter.
It is critical to monitor inventory effectiveness using five key metrics: Expedited orders, inventory turns, obsolete inventory, safety stock and stockouts. Whether you measure purchase orders or customer orders—and you should do both—high numbers indicate problems in your inventory planning and flow.
By embedding analytics across logistics, sourcing, and fulfillment, businesses gain the visibility and foresight needed to stay competitive.Analytics-driven leadership is no longer a luxury; it’s the foundation of operational survival in todays volatile business environment. Analytics allows organizations to move beyond intuition.
I have learned that supply chain systems are more complex than I originally thought, and that the relationships between supply chain metrics are nonlinear. In my work on the Supply Chain Index , I see that companies I recognize as doing network design well are rising faster on the list of the Supply Chain Index work.
According to a July 2014 supply chain research study from Accenture focused on Big Data and supply chain risk management, most organizations have high hopes for using big data analytics in their supply chain but many have had challenges in deploying it. This is where the platform approach to supply chain management comes into play.
This architecture deliberately pushes beyond visibility to enable action and automation, ultimately working toward what project44 describes as “self-optimized logistics” through “adaptive, automated actions at scale.” This extensive connectivity has resulted in impressive metrics: 1.2
Part 2 in the series explores the “analytical scenario exercise” and how decisions based on certain scenarios heavily impact each aspect of the value chain. Ultimately, what KPIs, as metrics and indicators derived from the set of plans are taken into account and prepared for each scenario. Technology for Effective Planning.
Metrics used to evaluate these new books are as below, 1) Citation count from Google Scholar 2) Number of reviews found on Amazon.com 3) Editorial Opinion Citation count is a standard way to evaluate any publication. So, customer''s review on Amazon.com (3 stars or more) is also used as a metric.
This means continuously assessing the trade-off between the total cost to serve and meeting customer demand and minimizing lost sales. The increasing need for constantly analyzing these trade-offs across the supply chain networks has highlighted the need for digital twins and what-if capabilities in network design solutions.
The market for network design tools was growing at a moderate rate, and most of the market had invested in technologies from either i2 Technologies (then termed i2 Strategist) or Logictools. This analysis needed to be completed monthly and fed to newer forms of inventory optimization technologies. Cost-to-Serve and Top-to-Top Meetings.
Transportation Metrics That Matter Most to Track and Improve Performance : How do you measure logistics efficiency and transportation metrics performance indicators when you are already doing the best job possible? To add insult to injury, they also rarely have reporting mechanisms to properly monitor those expenses.
Last week in the middle of a presentation, a supply chain leader made the statement, “We have solved the issues in supply through better optimization and use of data. The data models are wrong. Which supply chain metrics correlate to market capitalization by Morningstar sector? Experiment with these new forms of analytics.
To keep customers like my dad satisfied, RGD and Quick-commerce companies need to invest in new technologies to optimize the supply chain and logistics operations. Inventory Optimization. Inventory Optimization involves decisions about the inventory level, the location, and the mix of products. Route Optimization.
To monitor supply chain performance, stakeholders of successful companies typically define supply chain metrics that are relevant to the given business and track these KPIs regularly. By setting benchmarks for metrics, analysts can recognize unsettling trends and take preventive measures on time.
Cash-to-Cash Metrics. Cash-to-cash is a compound metric: (Days of Receivables+Days of Inventory)-Days of Payables=Cash Conversion Cycle. While touted as a digital procurement provider, it took the Company nine days to onboard me as a vendor, and two weeks to process a Purchase Order. In times of uncertainty, cash is king.
Digital commerce efficiently requires the digitalization of many customer-facing operations and sourcing and procurement. It includes all of its elements: customers, sales channels, products, warehouses, logistics network, and the interactions between them. Accurate and timely reconciliation of purchase orders with receipts.
Tactical forecasting helps us to think through the questions of long-term asset strategies and sort through network design optimization alternatives. In contrast, the demand organization that I am advocating is an analytics group that crosses over sales and marketing into supply. 2) Invest in New Forms of Analytics.
Transportation Networks and Modal Shifts A good transportation strategy is one of the best ways to reduce emissions. Through networkoptimization. This means consolidating shipments to max out load factors, using route optimization algorithms to minimize distance travelled, and shifting to lower emission transport modes.
It’s like having a magic wand that optimizes inventory levels, prevents shortages, and sharpens your demand forecasting—all from your smartphone. Mobile inventory management is a digital solution that combines a mobile inventory app with cloud-based software to track, manage, and optimize inventory in real-time.
The next posts in the series will break down metrics and issues to consider in SQM by industry and conclude with a case study on the application of SQM. 5 Key Metrics to Use for Scoring Supplier Quality Management (From LNS Research ). Cost of quality. The definition of this metric is similar to the way it sounds.
And, should it be taken one step further to orchestrate bidirectionally market-to-market in market-driven value networks? The original principles of a value network that can sense, shape and translate demand with near-zero latency are being lost in the fog. The market shift is towards analytics, but this new market is confusing.
I also shared with them my view that companies will ultimately find opportunities for supply chain innovation at the intersection of Software, B2B Connectivity, and Social Networking — a trend best illustrated by the rise of Supply Chain Operating Networks (SCONs). Supply Chain Operating Networks Accelerate Business Cycles.
I am a big believer in procurement getting involved as early as possible in new product development based on all the market knowledge available. The worst-case scenario is product engineering developing a new product, selecting a supplier and then telling procurement to get on with negotiation. How often do your purchase orders change?
For AFFLINK's partners and affiliates navigating complex procurement environments, ESG integration reshapes how supply chains are built, evaluated, and optimized. With consumers and investors alike expecting higher accountability, ESG compliance has become a key differentiator in global procurement.
In the absence of communication, even the best suppliers can only deliver marginal value at best. For optimal effectiveness, supplier selection, contract management , and supplier development must be supported by consistent, streamlined, and transparent collaboration. Collaboration brings visibility and agility for gaining market share.
I wrote my first report on Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) while sitting on the floor in the Atlanta airport in 2005 when I was an AMR Research analyst. I wrote many reports on airport floors in those days–electrical plugs were just too scarce.) Sales and Operations Maturity Model from 2005-2008. Figures 2 and 3.
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