This audio was created using Microsoft Azure Speech Services
It’s 2021 and digital supply chain is having its moment. It’s a topic that has abruptly come into focus since the pandemic rudely disrupted things. Bain & Company has reported that supply chain is now seen as a strategic capability rather than simply as a cost center, and supply chain managers are increasingly being included in businesses’ strategic decision making. This is a clear indication that supply chain data and insights are vital to business success.
Supply chain optimization goes beyond the impacts of the pandemic. Capturing data about ingredients and materials is important on various levels:
Ultimately, providing consumers with information about the products they buy can give a brand a competitive advantage. This was a big growth area well before the pandemic turned up.
Using real-time data to manage your supply chain
Now I’ve convinced you that supply chain optimization is where it’s at, what can you do about it? To generate the business insights that enable supply chain optimization, you need to securely access data in real time. Not only data within your four walls but also data from your suppliers and downstream customers too. The transparency that comes with the secure, free flow of data will allow you to manage your supply chain in real time to optimize performance and proactively address any product recalls or missed supplier deliveries, for example.
Companies often lack the technical know-how to decide which IIoT solutions will allow them to easily access data and make step-change improvements to their operations. To help break down these barriers we offer a simple powerful solution called EcoStruxure Plant Advisor. It allows users to easily manage and analyze data from multiple systems (IT and OT) and sites in the one place.
Digital solutions that enable supply chain optimization
Essentially EcoStruxure Plant Advisor is an all-in-one IIoT platform that can be customized to meet the needs of customers in specialized segments such as consumer packaged goods, mining minerals and metals, and discrete manufacturing. It’s also scalable, which means it can be deployed and built to match where you’re at in your business growth or digitalization journey.
For end users in the CPG segment, for example, it comes prepackaged with EcoStruxure Traceability Advisor, which allows you to capture and analyze data from different sources and stakeholders, giving you end-to-end visibility and ultimately allowing you to optimize and manage complex supply chains.
A few benefits include:
- Driving product traceability across the entire supply chain for accurate ingredient labelling and product quality control
- Helping meet consumer and regulatory requirements for food information, sourcing, and safety
- Making it easier to share product information from manufacturers (multi-source data) with different retail channels
- Helping to avoid counterfeiting and to ensure the authenticity of each product
Lastly, it’s vital that industrial companies are open to working together to implement the secure digital supply chain technologies and invest in solutions to enable this process. If industrial companies across the value chain (e.g. suppliers, manufacturing plants and downstream customers) collaborate to fully deploy these secure digital technologies, they can enjoy the benefits of supply chain optimization both now and into the future.
