The Visible Supply Chain

By Epicor Software and Ventana Research

Today's supply chain is, of course, the primary processing mechanism of every manufacturing company. But it's more than that: Its multifaceted, multicompany, multinational structure makes it the most complex management challenge found in any enterprise. Supply chain management no longer means just making sure that the right resources and the right materials move to the right place at the right time. Today, it also means ensuring that the entire chain of events involved in producing goods and distributing them to customers satisfies customers, minimizes costs and maximizes profit.

Clearly, managing a supply chain in this fashion requires information, but exactly what that means is not obvious. Merely pushing information about partners or products into a report that lands on a manager's desk every day will not achieve the goals. Nor will a dashboard, even if it delivers that same information in real time.

What today's supply chain managers need instead is a supply chain that is visible. "Visibility" in this case means that data about the supply chain is delivered in a way that enables managers to know whatever they need to know whenever they need to, at whatever level of detail they need, and that allows them to analyze the data and take action based on the results of their analysis. The essence of supply chain visibility is the ability to know the location and status of all physical components, from raw materials to finished goods, as they move from suppliers through the stages of production to delivery to customers.