Today, all organizations want a digitized and contextualized manufacturing environment to enable the digital supply chain where the stakeholders can quickly extract relevant information and make decisions. A digital supply chain has visibility across the supply chain where the goods and materials are physically located and the supply chain and financial achievement can be measured against targets. And all these things can be achieved through various digital levers like Big Data and Predictive Analytics, Internet of the Things, Cloud Services, Robotic Automation, Omni-Channel E-Commerce, Machine Learning, and Blockchain.
A digital supply chain is a supply chain enabled by digital technologies to provide new revenue, value-producing opportunities. A true digital supply chain fully capitalizes on connectivity, system integration and the information-producing capabilities of "smart" components. In the diagram below few digitization levers have been mentioned which are used for various value chain components for manufacturing very frequently.
Product Development | Marketing & Sales | Planning | Procurement | Manufacturing | Fulfillment & Logistics | After sales & Service |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Social Media Listening Tools | Digital marketing | Integrated Business Planning | Automated procurement | 3D printing and additive manufacturing | IOT – GPS and GSM sensors | Remote Diagnostics |
3D Printing – Design as a Service | Big Data Analytics | Supply Chain Control Tower | Advanced procurement with collaborative optimization | Robots and autonomous vehicles | App based solutions | Telematics |
Collaborative design with supplier | Supply Chain Collaboration | Predictive Spend Analytics | Augmented Reality | Paperless Logistics | Customer Experience Management | |
IoT and Big Data Analytics | Demand Sensing | Integrated supplier platforms | IoT and predictive maintenance | Robotics & Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ‘drones’ | On Field Service | |
Analytics as a Service | Managing Supplier related risks | Smart factories | Logistics Control Tower | |||
Contract Management | IT interface with supplier |
Another big benefit that manufacturing companies get is partner enablement. Digital channels enable companies to penetrate in new market regions without any big investments. From traditional liner relation among partners, manufacturing companies transition itself to a network of a partner to ecosystem of partners, using various digitalization platforms enabled by IoT, Omni-Channel, Cloud, API Management etc. This enables even level 2 partners of a manufacturing company to join the ecosystem and actively participate in co-creation and co-innovation. Manufacturing companies benefit from Digital levers led transformation to extend their value chain across borders and thereby comprehensively exploiting global growth opportunities
Running and managing partnership becomes comparatively easier with digital levers and through ‘Outside In’ approach value is injected to OEM’s performance by bringing a new partner very smoothly. Also, the following manufacturing KPIs get positively impacted by usage of digital levers, thus increasing the efficiency of the supply chain.
KPI name |
Type of KPI |
UOM |
SCOR Attribute |
Forecast Accuracy |
Parent |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
Fill Rate |
Parent |
Percentage |
Supply Chain Responsiveness |
Perfect Order Fulfilment |
Parent |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
-%On Time Delivery |
Child |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
-%Ship complete |
Child |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
-%Invoice Accuracy |
Child |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
-%Damage Free |
Child |
Percentage |
Supply Chain reliability |
Inventory Turn |
Parent |
Days |
Supply Chain Agility |
Cash to cash Cycle Time |
Parent |
Days |
Supply Chain Management |
-Inventory days of Supply |
Child |
Days |
Supply Chain Management |
-Days of Sales outstanding |
Child |
Days |
Supply Chain Management |
-Days of Payable Outstanding |
Child |
Days |
Supply Chain Management |
Order Management Cycle Time |
Parent |
Days |
Supply Chain Responsiveness |
Return on Asset |
Parent |
Percentage |
Supply Chain Asset Management |
Procurement Cycle Time |
Parent |
Days |
Supply Chain Responsiveness |
COGS as a % of Revenue |
Parent |
Percentage |
Supply Chain Cost |