Supply Chain Brain: Cognizant’s Assistant Vice President of Consulting for Manufacturing and Logistics, Says Aligning Supply Chain Planning With Execution is a Competitive Necessity

“Results from the 2014 Supply Chain Benchmarking Study reveal investment priorities and top challenges of more than 300 supply chain professionals from a wide cross-section of the market,” writes Ramji Mani. “Decades after the introduction of supply chain planning technology, very few companies have mastered the art and science of supply chain planning—only about 10 percent are in the very early stages of maturity with a highly integrated supply chain environment, top-down and bottom-up oriented. Two-thirds of respondents said they were only moderately integrated in terms of planning processes and technologies. Clearly, there are many opportunities in supply chain planning for better leveraging technology and integrating into the business.” Excerpts:

“A major theme of the study was the desire for great visibility throughout the supply chain. The ability to achieve better visibility usually comes from internal execution systems, as well as from planning and execution with trading partners. In the end, high levels of near real-time visibility will cause operational planning and execution to merge into a single dynamic process.

Many companies need to be more proactive in closing their planning skills gaps. Closing this gap will enable more effective and efficient planning, which could further streamline operations over the subsequent year.

Digitally modeling a supply chain or process is often at the core of a planning application. This is a challenge, as every sector and company is different, and therefore hard to handle in packaged solutions.

Companies should conduct detailed cost/benefit analyses of maintaining in-house developed applications versus using packaged solutions.

The more aggressive a company is in its use of technology, the lower the average score (and the more effective its supply chain planning).

The study presented us with opportunities in five main focus areas: sales and operating planning (S&OP), integration, investment, flexibility, and visibility.

Four notable trends are forming in the supply chain planning technology and processes. First, there will be a transition from S&OP to integrated business planning, which will bring with it two additional trends: moving toward more real-time planning environment, and increasing task automation. Last, there will be a marrying of supply chain planning and analytics, for increased visibility and better data for decision-making. These trends should converge to make supply chain planning a more deeply integrated process, both in terms of technology and across the business.”

Click here to read more.