Strategic Supply Chain Management - Supply Chain Online

CHAPTER 2 Core Discipline 2: Develop an End-to-End Process Architecture 85
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clearly defining customer segments, and then differentiate your
deliver processes, business rules, and services accordingly. For
instance, you may offer high-value customers several order-management
options while limiting other customers to self-service
and other lower-cost order channels. You also may give priority
to your best customers when allocating inventory in times of
product shortages.
Cut costs and time with straight-through processing. Send order
information to all relevant functions—credit approval, manufacturing
(for make to order), warehousing, transportation, and
invoicing—so that, where possible, execution activities can be
done simultaneously instead of sequentially, and all aspects of
deliver can be organized for smoother, faster processing. As with
information flows, design deliver physical flows for straightthrough
processing to minimize non-value-added wait time.
Choose your physical network—production, warehousing, and
transportation—with an eye toward total costs and delivery time.
Set up end-to-end tracking and traceability. The status of all customer
orders and shipments, from order signal to cash collection,
should be visible throughout the deliver process. For example,
customers should be able to see where their orders are, and key
account managers should have access to full order information
for each of their accounts. Moreover, managing supply chain
risks such as terrorism, counterfeiting, theft, and spoilage
requires being able to seal and track shipments from point of
production to point of delivery.
Manage data for ongoing accuracy and timeliness. Good delivery
performance depends on excellent data management.
Customer order creation and management require a broad range
of information, including product attributes, technical configurations,
prices, and customer addresses. All this information must
be kept current to avoid errors. Otherwise, orders and invoices
will be rejected and reworked, adding time and cost and tying up
cash in the supply chain. In most companies, data creation and
maintenance are a challenge involving many departments. The
challenge, though, is even greater beyond the enterprise, requiring
data and process standards among customers, suppliers, and
partners—each of which may have different data structures, definitions,
and repositories.