Are you familiar with every stop in your supply chain? How do you manage your product throughout its lifecycle, from ideation to manufacturing and distribution? Having an efficient, effective plan in place for your supply chain is critical for good business practices, and being able to accurately predict customer demand is part of that process.

A 2015 SCM World survey of 996 supply chain practitioners found that only 58 percent of them thought their overall supply chain and operations planning process was effective and impactful. Eighteen percent said that they didn’t have technology support at all, according to Forbes contributor Kevin O’Marah. In order to plan for supply chain success, however, it’s crucial for operations executives to get on the same page and invest in the right tools for the job so they can accurately forecast supply and demand for their organizations.

Get out your checklist

An effective supply chain and operations planning function has a few important characteristics. Here are only two of them:

• Resiliency: According to Supply Chain Digest contributor Henry Canitz, one of the key traits of any good plan is its resiliency. Organizations need to be able to quickly recover from supply chain disruptions and handle operational change effectively – all without too much hubbub within the business itself.
• Integration: The supply chain planning process isn’t enough on its own to derive value from your operations. Instead, it needs to be utilized alongside other planning frameworks within your organization. Technology integration is key here.

Supply chain success depends on the integration of the proper tools.

 

The importance of technology

To ensure your business is successful, you need to make sure you’re incorporating data from across your operations. SCM World’s finding that 18 percent of supply chain practitioners don’t have access to technology to support their planning activities is a troubling statistic. The data available throughout your operations needs to be put to good use – and you can’t do this without the proper technology and analytics tools. These solutions must be flexible and engender collaboration from across the supply chain.

“Now, with cloud allowing real-time data to be accessible not only from enterprise software systems but from machinery, vehicles and everything else that’s [Internet of Things] connected, it’s fair to expect actual inventory, capacity, cost and lead time information to be used for planning decisions,” O’Marah wrote. “Supply chain risk assessment upstream and downstream need no longer be an occasional project, but instead a perpetual monitoring capability.”

As 2017 soldiers on, it’s going to be critical for your operations teams to help you create a faster, more agile enterprise by adopting an integrated supply chain. This is why investing in tools like the Oracle SCM Cloud suite of solutions can make a difference in simplifying the product lifecycle and meet your supply chain goals – no matter what industry you operate within.

Get in touch with the integrated supply chain experts at Inspirage today for more information about how we can assist you in deploying and managing your Oracle SCM Cloud solutions.