Advanced Analytics for Supply Chain: 10 use cases

Are you interested in Advanced Analytics for your Supply Chain? Manage costs, improve profit: these are the top priorities for supply chain executives today (cf. PwC Global Supply Chain Survey). But executives also know supply chains must balance availability, quality, and cost by being flexible, responsive, reliable, efficient, and resilient.

With all of these competing priorities, how can you quantify the effect of your decisions? Supply chain leaders are turning to data discovery software to see the whole story across their supply chain data.

Data analytics is widely explained in three approaches and also have helped thousands of companies in all industries gain visibility across the supply chain, collaborate with partners, and better understand risks and opportunities. By improving insight in 10 performance areas, supply chain leaders are able to make more holistic decisions while creating a resilient and flexible supply chain that drives growth.

1. Executive Insight

End-to-end visibility of supply chain performance across multiple functions and disciplines reveals previously unseen trends and drives better decisions. Advanced Analytics dashboards and scorecards provide this insight, elevating supply chain priority to C-level decision-makers

2. Forecasting and planning

Excellent sales, operational, and inventory planning involves collaboration within and outside an organization. Advanced Analytics let you share complex data and collaborate with critical stakeholders to improve forecast accuracy, better respond to consumer demand, reduce inventory, improve production, and grow profits.

3. Sourcing and supplier performance

Visibility is fundamental to efficient procurement, especially if supplier relationships span design, manufacturing, and distribution. Advanced Analytics let you monitor supplier performance on delivery, price, and service to strengthen negotiations and partnerships.

4. Production Insight

A good plant must run at peak efficiency with limited downtime. Advanced Analytics show you the whole story across your shop floor and back office data so you can plan and schedule production, improve quality, control costs, reduce waste, manage assets, and increase efficiency.

5. Warehousing and distribution

A low-cost distribution operation results from efficient use of warehouse resources, high inventory turns, proximity of materials to need, and rare out-of-stock situations. Advanced Analytics give you visibility across the entire supply and demand cycle so you can optimize storage and movement.

6. Transportation and Logistics

Increasingly global, transportation and storage can account for more than 30% of production costs. Advanced Analytics help you control costs by tracking efficiency and capacity use to select the best mode and carrier, as well as monitor customs, health, safety, and environmental requirements across multiple countries to ensure compliance and on-time delivery.

7. Fleet Management

Managing a fleet means maximizing capital investment through increased efficiency and capacity use. Advanced Analytics let you do this by keeping on top of maintenance schedules, fuel costs, lease expiration, vehicle downtime, operator safety, emissions, and regulatory compliance.

8. Omni-Channel

Meeting customer demand with relevant offers and a high quality shopping experience across channels is highly complex. Advanced Analytics provide visibility into sales, inventory, customer, and supply chain processes for a true omni-channel view of the business and an efficient supply chain.

9. Regulatory Compliance

Complying with government regulations lets you avoid penalties while building customer trust. Advanced Analytics help you track and access compliance information from production, processes, and procedures to training, service, hazards, and labelling – across and beyond your organization.

10. IT Management

IT must serve the supply chain by managing assets, monitoring SLAs, rationalizing licenses, and managing project portfolios, often on a global scale. Advanced Analytics let you analyze data across all supply chain systems such as forecasting, MES, WMS, TMS, and external big data to manage and improve service cost and performance.