5 Tips for Effective Supply Chain Management

Developing an effective and successful supply chain should be the number one goal of manufacturing companies. This does not have to be an expensive and time-consuming task, especially if you know where to begin. In this blog, New Horizon Freight Solutions gives you tips to create a successful supply chain strategy.

How to Maximise Supply Chain Efficiency

While many factors contribute to a supply chain’s success, there are several key actions manufacturing companies can take to ensure success and profitability. Here are seven tips for effective supply chain management.

1. Update Your Strategy

It’s not enough to develop a supply chain management strategy and then toss it in a filing cabinet. This is something you must revisit and update on a revolving basis. At a bare minimum, it needs to be analyzed once per year. Doing so quarterly will yield even better results.

While it may seem like common sense, few manufacturers actually develop a written supply chain strategy. Budgets and objectives are beneficial, but companies need to focus on developing a strategy in order to improve their supply chain. Regularly updating your strategy will help you gain a better view of your supply chain and develop solutions to problems that arise.

2. Align Your Business

Sales and Operations Planning has made it easier for companies to align supply chains with the business. However, companies often lose track of the importance of this alignment due to critical operational pressures and additional factors.

Make sure that those higher up in your manufacturing company realise the importance of aligning your supply chain with the business and make it a top priority. As you reevaluate your current strategy and make changes, be certain that the “higher-ups” in your company are prioritizing the alignment of supply chain and core business goals in areas like sales and marketing.

3. Develop Your Employees

Companies running supply chains face significant operational pressures every day. However, businesses still need to find the time to focus on developing employees and their skills. Companies can start doing this by regularly assessing their employees, investing in training and skills enhancement, rotating the most promising managers through multiple job assignments, and spending time developing succession plans for higher level supply chain positions.

New software and technology are giving business leaders unparalleled levels of insight into how their supply chains are performing, as well as where they can improve. But it would be unwise to assume that data is everything. While artificial intelligence is transforming how analytics deliver value to businesses, it can’t transform your supply chain on its own. It’s ultimately people who drive innovation. By empowering them you’ll put yourself in a favorable position.

4. Enhance Your Communication

In order to find true success, companies need to develop a fact-based culture. Rather than accepting assumptions at face value, employees need to dig for factual evidence. Managers and executives need to stress the importance of fact-based analysis among supply chain teams in order to improve success in logistics.

Nothing replaces timely, transparent, and forthcoming communication in supply chain management. It’s far better to over-communicate something than to assume that it has already been covered. Keep all key players in the loop to ensure that there’s a seamless flow of information at every stop along the way.

5. Use Innovative Technology

The most successful supply chains incorporate technology such as management systems into their strategies and warehouses. The top performers are more aggressive and smarter users of technology because they know that the competitive advantage comes early in the technology cycle. Companies that adopt technology after it has matured are merely catching up to companies who have already mastered the technology.
Ensuring your systems and processes are in top shape will not only help you get your money’s worth from your system, but it will also help you create a more effective supply chain.

NHFS is Your Trusted Partner in Logistics Management Efficiency

Proper supply chain management lowers input costs, increases efficiency, enhances output, and boosts profits. All of these factors combine together to pass along savings to the consumer, which further fuels each of these underlying elements. So to say that supply chain management is important would be an understatement. It’s vital to the long-term success of any growing organisation.