Supply Chain Management & Logistics | Intelligent Automation

Supply chain management is the movement of goods and resources, inbound or outbound, with the primary participants along the chain — manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, & retailers — being responsible for the supply chain and for helping deliver the final product to the end customer.

Logistics is a series of congruent activities like transportation, packaging, warehousing, etc. that make up a supply chain network.

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As you can imagine, supply chain and logistics are a critical part of any business that, if optimized, can ensure cost-effective and timely product delivery to customers. After all, these are the factors that determine continued business for any company. There are several opportunities for process optimization within a supply chain. Several optimization techniques can be employed to ensure precision control of supply chain and logistics activities. In the age of industry 4.0, process optimization is easier to achieve through automation. Intelligent automation definitely shortens the time-to-market for any product, but it also brings with it the cost-effectiveness, agility, and reliability that make up a successful supply chain.

Why only intelligent automation and not any other form of optimization? Well, we are all aware of the standard supply chain management optimization techniques of Kanban and Just-In-Time (JIT) that have revolutionized the way products are delivered.

However, this new digital age has everything to do with information and data management. Supply chains essentially depend on data flows between various entities along the chain. Intelligent automation, alongwith other advanced automations that incorporate cognitive technologies, enable the optimization of data-and-document-dependent processes in a supply chain. This in turn ensures timely exchange of information between various entities along the supply chain for optimal coordination of manufacturing, wholesale, distribution, and retail activities. Timely data availability also saves companies the costs and liabilities associated with inefficient logistics and accelerates product delivery to the customer. A company’s standing in the marketplace is determined by the effectiveness of their supply chain to deliver products on time. It must be noted that a supply chain management can be a separate company or a department in itself in a large organization.

Major Processes within a Supply Chain

Demand Forecasting & Management: before anything, companies need to have a good understanding of the market demand for a product or service. This should help them gauge beforehand the quantity and variability of products to be manufactured from the raw materials.

Procurement: purchasing goods and raw materials from suppliers is a key step along the supply chain. It is important to have a good rapport with vendors to secure the best supplies and raw materials at competitive prices.

Order Fulfillment: order fulfillment includes receiving and processing customer orders, and preparing for the final delivery of the product.

Order Processing: The best way to reach out to a customer quickly is by accelerating the processing of a customer order. On reception of a customer order or purchase order from a buyer, a sales order is generated by the company intending to sell the product or service to the customer. A sales order is legally binding and there can be no changes to the pricing or quantity of goods to be bought from the seller. In fact, a sales order confirms the details of a customer’s purchase, and whether the purchase is being done on credit, on receipt of the goods, or immediately, the sale is deemed confirmed.
Warehousing: once a sales order is received, the company initiates warehousing operations including inventory lookup, assembling, packing, shipping, and also updating the inventory.
Transportation: Finished goods are best marketed through diverse distribution channels. The final product delivery also carries with it an invoice for goods purchased, to be delivered to the customer.
Returns Management: product returns are a common occurrence and must be dealt with extreme precision and speed to ensure that customers not only have the option to change or cancel their purchases, but be reminded of the ease with which they are able to do business with a company.

All these major processes within a supply chain can today be optimized greatly with intelligent automation and digital transformation technologies like AI, machine learning, intelligent data capture, robotic process automation, OCR/ICR/OMR and also industry 4.0 solutions.

For companies looking to optimize their supply chain management and logistics, you could start at the office with order processing.