The Supply Chain Visibility Challenge

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The Supply Chain Visibility Challenge

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Why do we Need Supply Visibility Tools?

• The shift in marketplace power from makers and
  sellers to buyers and consumers is being
  accelerated and amplified by the information
  revolution
• As sophisticated end-users demand more product
  and channel choices, greater customization of
  goods and services, and swift delivery of orders
  and information, the supply-chain reverberations
  are inescapable.
• No matter where a company is on the source/
  make/sell/deliver continuum, customers are
  expecting more.

Source Jean V. Murphy ARC, Customer-Driven
Supply Chains Begin With Real-Time Visibility,
March, 2001
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Customer-Driven Supply Chains Begin With
Real-Time Visibility

• Companies are responding to this charge toward a
  demand pull model with numerous initiatives.
• Such as
• sharing product and production plans with
  suppliers
• collaborating with retailers to better predict
  market demand
• using relationship tools to increase customer
  knowledge
• postponing final assembly and
• employing web-enabled technologies to provide
  visibility speeding both planning and
  execution.

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Visibility - Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM)

• Visibility generally refers to having visibility
  into supply chain metrics or events. In most
  cases, the focal point is a customer order
• A new class of software applications, which has
  been named only in the past year and a half, is
  often called supply chain event management
  (SCEM).
• Even though this is a very young market, there
  are already more than 25 suppliers that offer
  SCPM

Source Adrian Gonzales, Senior Analyst, ARC
Advisory Group, The Supply Chain e-Business Top
100 Manage Supply-chain Management Outside the
Four Walls, June, 2001
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Visibility Revealed

• There are different degrees of visibility. In
  many cases, warehouse or production management
  suppliers offer SCPM modules that permit some
  advanced visibility into supply chain activities.
• On the other hand, for global supply chains,
  visibility incorporates everything from the
  status of production at supplier factories
  located abroad, through myriad steps, right out
  to final delivery to the customer.
• When we are looking at global visibility,
  scalability becomes critical. One majorsoftware
  company tried to build a global visibility
  solution and had to throw it away, and start
  over, because the solution did not scale.

Source EXE Technologies Supply Chain Execution
Solutions - Visibility