Aligning Supply ChAin proCeSSeS
with BuSineSS StrAtegy
AlloCAting reSourCeS
effeCtive plAnning And
deCiSion-MAking
IMPROVING THE VISIBILITY
OF YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN
REAL WORLD
SCENARIOS
volume 1
Cases 1 - 3
Seeing whAt MAtterS
GaininG Full Visibility and
Control oF supply Chain
operations
as a supply chain professional you need to have complete
visibility of your complex supply chain operations to
maintain control and alignment with the business strategy
of your company. Without a centralized, current view
that presents actionable information about processes,
the movement of goods, and warehouse and distribution
operations, it is next to impossible to make smart decisions
and introduce the right changes to optimize the supply
chain network you’re in. Without granular as well as
high-level visibility, it is also difficult to enable people
and processes in the supply chain to support customer
service-level commitments and prepare for tomorrow’s
operational challenges.
Issue
the leadership team in a global organization noticed gaps
between the company’s vision and strategy, its supply
chain processes, and the way its technology systems
worked. While these systems helped to perform critical
tasks in supply chain operations, it had become difficult
to adjust them as the company underwent change
and growth. similarly, revising ingrained processes
and practices for changed requirements looked like an
overwhelming change management task. these limitations
also impacted the company’s ability to plan and direct its
growth into new markets and to collaborate effectively
with its supply chain business partners.
Problem
executives updated business strategy in response to
shifts in the market, but, when it came to supply chain
operations, they could not translate these changes into
action. in consequence, they were unable to rely on the
ability of supply chain operations to follow the company’s
direction. supply chain managers, logistics managers, and
warehouse supervisors also were unable to bring their
best-practice expertise to work on behalf of the company,
because they lacked an easy way to run the most effective
process flows on the systems in use at the time.
Remedy
having implemented and integrated Microsoft dynamics
aX 2012 with ColumbussCs (supply Chain solution),
company managers gained the ability to perform business
process modeling. by doing so, they now can define
and implement the processes and practices that make
most sense for the business, and closely fit the erp
infrastructure to the supply chain’s evolving requirements.
they can document and propagate best practices by
recording the most effective process flows and making
them directly available to employees as they work with
the solutions. the company uses the ColumbussCs
multi-country and cross-organizational capabilities to
support its international growth and develop profitable
collaboration with its supply chain partners. When the
company implemented a new warehouse management
system, it made use of ColumbussCs to plan the most
efficient deployment and integration.
Case 1:
aligning processes with
business strategy
4
Benefits
the company optimized processes across its organization
and value chain, adjusting operations to reduce the costs
of storing and handling goods, and to meet customer
service-level commitments more effectively. today, as
the Coo and company leadership steer the company’s
domestic and international growth, they rely on highly
productive processes running smoothly and consistently
on a flexible erp infrastructure that can adjust to
the company’s direction. employees in the company’s
warehouse and logistics teams access best-practices
guidance that allows them to perform such tasks as
receiving, put-away, cross-docking, picking, packing, and
shipping efficiently and with great accuracy. Customers
enjoy service quality at a steady, high level, and supply
chain partners find that engaging with the company is
an efficient, productive experience. the implementation
of the new warehouse management system took almost
20 percent less time than it would have done before the
company began working with ColumbussCs.
5
Remedy
implementing Microsoft dynamics aX 2012 with
ColumbussCs (supply Chain solution), the company
gave decision-makers and planners at all levels of the
organization capabilities tailored to their roles. From
executives to warehouse workers, an integrated,
centralized technology infrastructure offers real-time,
meaningful information regarding all of the operations
and performance. specifically, the dashboard of task
Management provides logistics supervisors and supply
chain managers with meaningful reporting to specifically
assess and manage details of warehousing operations.
Issue
a successful company with complex distribution and
supply chain operations needed to ensure that strategic
planning, decision-making, and forecasting by executives
and managers were sound, timely, and reliable. Without
a way to include supply chain planning and execution in
reporting and performance management, the success of
the company’s strategy was at risk.
Problem
Company executives did not have within easy reach the
tools to help them understand, control, and shape supply
chain events. therefore, the complete business impact of
supply chain activities was almost impossible to ascertain.
logistics and distribution managers had an understanding
of the processes and desired process outcomes within
their domains, but were not able to bring about their
success within the context of the company’s objectives.
Case 2:
effective planning and
decision-Making
6
Benefits
the Coo and supply Chain director rely on the erp
system together with ColumbussCs to inform confident
planning, forecasting, and business management. the
logistics manager and warehouse supervisor conduct
reliable advanced planning to optimize the usage of the
workforce and achieve even better customer-service
levels. logistics and supply chain managers proactively
pursue improvements in the management of operational
performance, warehouse tasks, volumes, and waves.
as managers define new benchmarks for efficiency and
productivity, they guide supply chain operations along a
path of continuous improvement. as a consequence of the
use of pervasive insight and decision-driving capabilities,
the company also succeeds in improving its margins and
maintaining growing revenues.
7
Case 3:
allocating resources
Issue
a large european company tasked its distribution and
warehouse managers with improving the resource
efficiency and productivity of the operations of which they
were in charge. the Coo and other executives felt there
were rich opportunities for making people and processes
more successful. they also wanted to ensure that
customer service-level commitments were incorporated
into all of the organization’s supply chain operations, so
the fulfillment of promises to customers would never be
questionable.
Problem
logistics, warehouse, and distribution managers found it
difficult to create an environment that allowed their teams
to work at optimal productivity. they also were not able
to anticipate the outgoing and incoming flow of goods,
which meant resource planning was less than effective.
Warehouse and distribution workers, on the other hand,
often wished for a more effective way to contribute their
skills and experience to the success of the operation.
Remedy
Following the deployment of ColumbussCs (supply
Chain solution), warehouse managers use order release
Management, Wave planning and task Management to
plan customer deliveries and related workflows based
on priorities, timelines, and available resources. they
schedule the picking of orders for best efficiency and
automatically assign tasks to workers based on priorities
and available skills. logistics managers can easily ascertain
that the warehouse teams take items to the dock in a
timely manner and are ready to process arriving containers.
Warehouse workers can combine multiple order lines for
easier handling and identification, and assemble pallets
flexibly with differently-dimensioned cartons.
8
Benefits
this company now allocates resources, optimizes
warehouse throughput, and achieves performance
improvements based on timely insight into applicable
service-level commitments, timelines, and priorities.
Warehouse and distribution employees play a key role
in making warehouse operations and the movement of
goods optimally productive. the company notes significant
improvements in both performance and the satisfaction
of logistics and warehouse workers, who now find it easier
to make a productive contribution. Without adding staff to
warehouse operations, the company achieved an increase
in warehouse workforce capacity. at the same time, the
costs for packaging and handling goods decreased. in
addition, turnover among warehouse and distribution
workers has gone down, leading to further cost reductions
as a result of less recruiting, hiring, and onboarding of new
employees.
9
optimizing the supply Chain
with practical insight
ColumbussCs (supply Chain solution) enables companies to
move forward confidently with complete visibility. across
all aspects of supply chain management, planning, and
execution, ColumbussCs provides relevant information
to facilitate insightful planning and efficient operation.
Companies can flexibly define and refine the processes
that drive their supply and value chains, and enhance them
by using reliable, real-time information that meets the
needs of key roles. they can easily globalize and extend
their supply chain to share resources and information
across organizations and channels. ColumbussCs
integrates with and extends with and extend Microsoft
dynamics aX 2012, the leading erp system known for
its flexibility, ease of use, and outstanding
cost-to-benefit ratio.
the companies we discuss in our cases use several
different solutions from ColumbussCs:
> Warehouse Management, including Wave Planning
and Task Management
> Inventory Management, including Reservation and
Allocations
> Supply Chain Design, which includes RapidValue to
facilitate business process optimization
> Supply Chain Integration, which offers a framework
to simplify integration of third-party systems
For more information about ColumbussCs,
visit www.columbusglobal.com.
10
RapidValue is a business process modeling tool built
inside Microsoft Dynamics AX to help you deliver more
value from your ERP implementation. Columbus has
taken industry best practice processes, from our
experience of over 6,000 implementations, and built
them directly into the solution.
around 80% of business processes within an industry are
standard from one organization to the next. We have
defined and visualized these processes, which enables us
to focus on the areas which are your competitive
differentiators. this helps you streamline your business
processes across the organization for efficiency, speed
and to adopt best practices.
When combined with the surestep+ implementation
methodology it ensures that you achieve a complete
end to end solution with a faster and smoother
implementation, increased roi, lower cost of
ownership and documented processes.
Columbus RapidValue
erp With best praCtiCes built in
11
ABOUT COLUMBUS:
Columbus is the preferred business partner for ambitious companies worldwide
within the food, retail and manufacturing industries. We exceed 20 years of
experience and 6.000 successful business cases, and we’re proud to offer our
customers solid industry know-how, high performance solutions and global reach.
’Columbus’ is a part of the registered trademark ‘Columbus IT’
For more information on Columbus, our clients’ experiences
and our solutions, please visit www.columbusglobal.com
the ColumbusSCS real World scenario series
Volume 1
Cases 1 through 3
Volume 2
Cases 4 through 6
Volume 3
Cases 7 through 9
3 Ways to Gain Full Visibility and Control of Supply Chain Operations
3 ways to gain full visibility and control of supply chain operations
Read these 3 customer cases to see how supply chain professionals can have complete visibility and control of the supply chain and alignment with the overall strategy.
Learn how to gain visibility and control through:
• Aligning Supply Chain Processes with Business Strategy
• Allocating Resources
• Effective Planning and Decision Making
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