Is your company one of the many companies that are not making progress with digitization? For an honest self-analysis, I will ask you 5 questions below. If you mainly answer yes to these questions, you have not yet made much progress with digitalization in the area of supply chain management.
- Is data processing characterized by manual activities?Is data still mainly recorded manually? Master data and planning parameters are laboriously maintained with a lot of manpower? Do you pull data from the ERP system to process it in complex Excel spreadsheets?
- Are the processes divided up by department?Are the processes interrupted by different responsibilities? Are there no regular coordination meetings in which, for example, scheduling, purchasing and production coordinate their activities? Does the information flow past the systems?
- Are decisions made by people?Are priorities called, for example, by customer orders? Are the planning results often changed because priorities change? Does the planner’s gut feeling (you could also call it experience) determine the availability of products and components? Are production and order proposals checked and changed manually?
- Is your IT landscape overwhelmed by the requirements of your supply chain?Does your ERP system have functional weaknesses that need to be circumvented by workarounds? Are there system breaks where the data flow is interrupted? Do disruptions in the process lead to delays until rescheduling takes place and work can continue?
- Do you accept additional costs to keep the business running?Are you building up additional stock and time buffers to be better prepared for disruptions? Do you combine requirements and transportation to save work and effort?
Result: Did you often have to answer yes? Then you should start digitization in your company as soon as possible. Tackle the issue, because it will catch up with you later. At the latest when you run out of qualified workers, your supply chain will start to falter.
“No resources” or “no time” should not be the reasons why digitization is not progressing. There are plenty of specialists who have the necessary know-how and can provide you with active support. They can also help you select the tools and integration platforms you need.
Get to work!
With best regards-Bernd Reineke-
Featured image:Smart Factory, Image rights: iStock
