The key to
effective supply chain management (SCM) is in closing the gap
between day-to-day changes in the supply chain and a companies’
ability to recognize and respond to them.
Despite the
economic justification for SCM, new barriers to productivity
have been created because they increase the complexity of
communication between participants.
Manufacturers
and their supply chain partners typically handle communication
across the geographically dispersed supply chain using a variety
of means: e-mails for regular interaction, faxes for exchanges
requiring documentation or real-time input and phone calls for
emergencies. Although there may be some sharing of information
systems, the number of participants and their varying business
requirements makes widespread installation and integration of a
“single” information system impractical.
Argo-Soft, a
proven logistics framework has been working with a major
electronics manufacturer to help solve these logistics planning
and customer orders tracking issues, by improving the
communication between departments, vendors and customers.
Argo-Soft
began by modeling the user’s effort and ingenuity for sharing
information from faxed reports, Excel spreadsheets, emails,
phone calls and planning reports by customer type. The challenge
was to integrate this data into a single, cohesive view.
What emerged
was a platform that supported easily integrated communication
and collaboration. Based on Microsoft SQL and .Net technology,
planning and tracking modules were created which presented
unified planning and tracking reports.
Utilizing
built-in business rules modeled from the customers existing
manual processes, the planning and tracking modules are able to
improve delivery timeliness, improve customer relations, and
make the data more accessible for event analysis and drill down.
The key to
improve the delivery timeliness for their customers was in
providing real-time inputs and actionable information necessary
to respond to constantly changing events within the supply
chain.
The Argo-Soft
Planning and Tracking modules enabled them to acquire on-demand
visibility to the flow of orders through their hubs and channels
to their customers. The modules provide complete, accurate and
timely information which helped them predict and eliminate
customer delivery problems before they happened.
