Competing on Analytics: Updated, with a New Introduction by Thomas Davenport Jeanne Harris

Author:Thomas Davenport,Jeanne Harris [Davenport, Thomas H.;Harris, Jeanne G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633693739
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Published: 2017-07-24T04:00:00+00:00

Supplier-Facing Processes

Contemporary supply chain processes blur the line between customer- and supplier-oriented processes. In some cases, customers penetrate deep into and across an organization, reaching all the way to suppliers. In other cases, companies are managing logistics for their customers (refer to the box “Typical Analytical Techniques in Supply Chains”).

TYPICAL ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES IN SUPPLY CHAINS

Capacity planning. Finding and optimizing the capacity of a supply chain or its elements; identifying and eliminating bottlenecks; typically employs iterative analysis of alternative plans.

Combinatorics. A sophisticated mathematical technique that models components in a supply chain, typically with a goal of optimizing them or their attributes.

Demand–supply matching. Determining the intersections of demand and supply curves to optimize inventory and minimize overstocks and stockouts. Typically involves such issues as arrival processes, waiting times, and throughput losses.

Location analysis. Optimization of locations for stores, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, and so on. Increasingly uses geographic analysis and digital maps to, for example, relate company locations to customer locations.

Modeling. Creating models to simulate, explore contingencies, and optimize supply chains. Many of these approaches employ some form of linear programming software and solvers, which allow programs to seek particular goals, given a set of variables and constraints. More recent approaches involve machine learning applications.

Routing. Finding the best path for a delivery vehicle around a set of locations. Many of these approaches are versions of the “traveling salesman problem.”

Scheduling. Creating detailed schedules for the flow of resources and work through a process. Some scheduling models are finite in that they take factory capacity limits into account when scheduling orders. So-called advanced planning and scheduling (APS) approaches also recognize material constraints in terms of current inventory and planned deliveries or allocations.

Simulation. Supply chain simulations model variation in supply flows, resources, warehouses, and various types of constraints. They allow for both optimization and visualization of complex supply chains.

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