When the term automation is highlighted, most people experience a brief sci-fi-laden slideshow in their heads. It’s 2022; humanoid robots take to the streets, disrupting life as we know it and clashing with their old human masters. Good for us, when we talk about the world of automation in supply chains, robots are more about increasing efficiency and less about the whole enslaving humanity angle.
It’s no secret that demand flexible, accurate, and agile supply chain logistics is rising. As consumer and client bases continue to increase, supply chains will need to adapt to larger, more complex information and product transportation methods. However, many time-consuming processes go along with managing a successful supply chain.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented unmatched challenges for supply chains. Many were muddling to figure out fast solutions for shortages and massive delays and mitigate this risk in the future by not depending on a single source or geography for production. Analysts, planners, and buyers are looking to improve the customer-centric supply chain post-pandemic.
Producing or procuring the correct quantity of the proper product for YOUR consumer relies on automated analytics. Some of the most successful supply chains utilize our solutions to improve forecasts, assortment and inventory decisions, and the uptime of in-service equipment.
With this blog, learn six ways analytics automation can help supply chain management.
#1 Safety Stock Optimization
Within the supply chain, planners, buyers, and analysts work on redistributing current inventory away from disrupted locations or relocating safety stock to fulfill higher demands. By visualizing and understanding where cycle and safety stocks are available, an organization can successfully move available inventory away from areas of disruption to meet increased demand.
With a proper analytics solution, you can quickly analyze safety stock levels and reprioritize distribution based on demographics and population density. You can also leverage drive time analysis and logistics details to move your inventory and understand freight costs plus on-time delivery.
#2 Managing Inventory
Many buyers purchase raw materials to prevent production interruptions or product stockouts. Buying raw materials in short supply and impacted areas is only possible when you can quickly reshape your forecast to anticipate short-term needs and recovery times.
With analytics on your side, you can analyze and visualize the cycle of your product, including the bill of materials and the network analysis of your transportation cycle. You can explore these key components to create a priority list, match sources with current capacity and delay constraints, and organize shipping to find warehouses that will hold additional raw materials.
#3 Predicting Consumer Demand
Planners and buyers often need to reshape their previous demand forecasts to consider tier two and tier three suppliers, raw material availability, current running stock, and safety stock levels. Reshaping demand forecasts provides insight into previous supply chain disruptions and potential short-term fulfillment.
You can look for other black swan events such as previous recession data and emergency response disruptions to investigate
and find critical indicators for solutions. Once you have discovered key indicators, use them for training predictive demand forecast models to gain a line of sight on what to expect from recovery.
#4 Meeting Consumer Demand
Most manufacturers and supply chains have already pre-approved alternate parts or raw materials to create their products. Activating these new suppliers can take a fiscal quarter, as production needs to be modified to accommodate new materials or parts.
Moreover, you can prepare a priority list, matching sources with present delay and capacity constraints to find warehouses and organize shipping to hold additional raw materials. With predictive analytics, you can easily understand variances and simulate new scenarios as raw materials and parts change.
#5 Managing Product and Supply Capacity
Many planning and logistics departments are focused on activating product redesign or materials certification based on currently available resources. Some manufacturers may find starting new products complex due to parts and material constraints. Due to this sudden shift, many are at a standstill as products must be redesigned with more available, recertified materials.
Additionally, you can quickly run a network analysis to understand better the bill of materials and the risks and limits of delivery times. Using the analysis to prioritize and modify new product designs, accommodate unique material availability variances, and simulate scenarios as raw materials and parts availability change.
#6 On-Time Delivery
Supply chain leaders prioritize securing additional air transportation and shortening freight-based lead times as supply and capacity increase. Moving available inventory away from disruption improves drivers’ safety and avoids cross-state, cross-country, and cross-continent delays caused by natural disasters and more.
With this, you can maximize savings by using analytics to visualize current air transportation availability and costs and optimize purchasing by forecasting on-time transportation.
Bottom Line
Surely, optimizing the supply chain through Analytics can be a challenge in itself, though. At Polestar solutions, we focus on developing tailored solutions to meet your business needs. To get a clear view of how your company can benefit from analytics automation in the supply chain management and avoid risks, contact our expert team now and get a free consultation.
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