The Supply Chain Control Tower: The single source of truth for your supply chain

Globalisation has made trade relations more international, while technical progress and cost pressure are leading to greater specialisation among suppliers. Supply chains are often intercontinental and involve long transport times. However, both production and customers require early and precise delivery dates.

Long transport routes entail risks such as severe weather, crises or political decisions that can affect delivery quality and security. This increases the effort required for supply chain management. According to Gartner Inc., 70 per cent of supply chain leaders already saw transparency as the biggest challenge in 2019. Buffer stocks are often built up to cushion against uncertainties. The range of coverage is no longer determined according to the just-in-time principle, but according to the just-in-case principle, which leads to increased storage requirements and capital tie-up, but does not eliminate the information deficit and the causes of the fluctuations.

Manual querying of status information in heterogeneous IT systems is inefficient due to different logins, data masks and filing logics. In crisis situations, decisions are often made on the basis of estimates instead of the actual available data, which leads to an impermissible complexity reduction without a valid basis for well-founded decisions.

What is a supply chain control tower?

The supply chain control tower (SCCT) offers exactly the supply chain visibility needed for effective and efficient supply chain management.

An SCCT is the single source of truth for your supply chain.

The great added value of an SCCT lies in breaking down data silos. Data sources from many different areas are connected to the SCCT, so that information from different areas is brought together. This makes connections visible that often remain hidden when looking at individual data sets. Or would you have thought just a few years ago that a volcanic eruption on a distant island could shut down your production?

The second and very central advantage of a modern SCCT lies in today's possibilities for analysing this data using AI to identify patterns and connections, simulating scenarios using digital twins and deriving well-founded recommendations for action ad hoc.

The Supply Chain Control Tower is thus not only a real-time visualisation of your data, it is much more than that: it is the key to lightning-fast responsiveness in crisis situations.

How is an SCCT structured?

Recognising the current situation

The first step towards optimal supply chain visibility is to capture the current situation using real-time data. This includes a complete history of each process and target-actual comparisons based on time stamps, as well as aggregated data and key figures.

The advantage: you receive product, financial and logistics information almost in real time and can control the future based on current data. All data converges in the Supply Chain Control Tower, providing a cross-location and cross-company overview. Patterns and relationships are automatically recognised and interpreted by AI.

This context recognition is achieved through machine learning and the integration of advanced data sources such as weather, traffic and news. Unstructured data is automatically structured and correlated. This creates true end-to-end visibility from product development to sales, enabling early detection of demand and price fluctuations.

Assess the impact of a situation correctly

With an SCCT, the impact of a situation can be assessed much better and more comprehensively in its entirety than when looking at individual data sets.

The data analysis is carried out with the help of self-learning models from the field of machine learning and AI. Through reinforced learning, the models learn which key figures are particularly important and independently find a way to achieve them within the given limits.

By comparing target and actual times, delays and deviations and the underlying disruptions in the supply chain can be detected faster and better. It is immediately apparent where disruptions occur and the causes can be determined immediately.

The data is analysed in real time: thanks to the permanent monitoring of the data streams, you won't miss anything. Trends are detected early and projected into the future, so that you know today what to expect tomorrow based on today's data.

With the help of digital twins, alternative crisis scenarios are examined in a what-if analysis.

Modelling cause-and-effect relationships in the supply chain in the form of digital twins forms the basis for two use cases: stress testing your supply chain and analysing possible alternative scenarios.

Troubleshooting

The newly acquired comprehensive knowledge base enables you to address and solve supply chain problems in a more targeted manner. With the help of digital twins, you have run through scenarios and alternative action strategies. As a result, you know the effects of each alternative option. Each strategy is now mature and well-founded and can be implemented on the basis of reliable scenarios. This enables you not only to react, but also to actively decide and anticipate developments with foresight. This significantly speeds up your exception handling and reduces costs by eliminating the need for trial and error.

What's more, you receive alerts before the incident occurs and the SCCT provides the appropriate recommendations for action. Production deadlines are recalculated based on current data. Inventory range specifications are adjusted. This optimises fluctuations and minimises purchase prices.

You decide whether, when and how your findings are implemented.

Implementing measures

You make your decisions based on all available system data, which allows for a high level of detail. If a shipment or order is at risk of missing a cut-off time, the process is automatically prioritised to reduce lead time and minimise risk. Feedback informs you when the costs of an action are higher than its benefits.

The advantage of breaking down information silos and modelling cost structures is obvious: information from ERP, warehouse management and order processing is viewed holistically. Systems along the supply chain are controlled via APIs, digitising repetitive tasks and automating their processing. Employees work on a unified interface, which saves time and increases security.

Machine learning and AI make decisions and optimise processes independently within permissible limits. This reduces the workload on employees and enables optimal inventory coverage and an autonomous supply chain.

Overall, you make better decisions because they are aligned with your company's strategy in the short and long term.

Which measures work best?

The above points enable you to gain new, truly valuable, detailed and in-depth insights by combining different sources. You automate your data cleansing processes and base your decisions only on data that meets your quality standards. You play through options and scenarios using digital twins and leverage untapped optimisation potential.

Iterative learning and AI continuously improve your logistics processes. In doing so, you store experience and knowledge in the system, making it available for future decisions.

This is how you create the basis for an optimal customer experience. The collaboration between you and your supply chain partners will improve noticeably.

Conclusion

With a supply chain control tower, your logistics are able to see the individual processes as part of the whole. You take into account all of your data and use it to make decisions that also correspond to your medium and long-term goals. An SCCT eliminates the apparent chaos in the networked logistics system and makes the complexity tangibly more manageable. With the help of the relationship knowledge between the actors and agents of your digital twin model, you can create evidence-based forecasts in a matter of seconds, even in times of crisis, offering you unprecedented flexibility and security.

Have we sparked your interest? Contact us for a no-obligation initial consultation and get a better overview with the adesso Supply Chain Control Tower!

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