ADVANCED SCM - REFERENCE MODEL FOR AMBITIOUS LEADERS

High performance in an Advanced Supply Chain Environment • Today’s reference model for ambitious companies is the advanced supply chain concept. It builds on the foundations of supply chain centric organization, but adds targeted management concepts, and important “process worlds” to the supply chain centric organizational design. • Companies which operate in an advanced supply chain mode have already realized a consistent, internally and externally integrated supply chain. They act as an internal chain, and also as an external chain element towards suppliers, and towards customers. Therefore their internal value chain focuses on three key dimensions to enable their operations: o Production flexibility to adjust to changes in product portfolio, customer demands, and volume variations. o Supply reliability to ensure continuity and predictability of materials, goods, and services required to make the products o Customer integration to continually improve the ways of interaction with the market; this builds on joint improvement initiatives as well as on a set of targeted practices to focus on operational excellence, predictability, and flexibility. • In their operations they use a set of tactical enablers, processes, and ways of working. They have developed advanced ways to plan their execution, to have deep insights into their future market demands (and the associated risks), but also to have balanced inventories. Their logistics are designed and equipped to have high efficiency, but also high flexibility, reliability, and transparency using advanced transport management systems. • To manage the supply chain’s performance and execution processes, a set of organizational enablers is established. As a foundation, systems support transparency in operational status, but also deliver insights regarding the current performance levels. A stringent set of KPI is used to monitor the performance, and a task- force oriented approach works on continuous but also sporadic improvements. And the overall business balance of demand, supply, and own operational development, is managed by an integrated business planning - Sales and Operations Planning as top management process to manage the entire company. • As a result, they have smoothly running regular operations, and therefore can focus their energy on the occasional extraordinary situation - deviations in volumes, short term customer orders, and short term disturbances on the supply side. • All these sophisticated tools and enablers require a solid foundation - in data integrity, transparency, controls, speed, reliability, and flexibility of operations. Click here to learn more about the leading practices used by these companies. • Please contact us if you want to learn more on how this model can be applied to your organization, and improve your operational performance.