Strategic Supply Chain Management - Supply Chain Online

118 Strategic Supply Chain Management
A new customer-order oversight position consolidated several
departments—order entry, contract administration, and order management—
and had the added responsibility of being the primary liaison between the
customer and the company. And the account manager’s responsibilities were
expanded to include accountability for the accuracy of all customer and product
data (see Figure 3-9).
At first, progress was slow. The tendency to shift blame for problems
to other functions was a hard habit to break, and some people resisted taking
responsibility for their new roles within the organization. After a few
months, however, the company began to accept the concept of joint ownership
and specific accountability.
As a result, errors were caught and resolved earlier in the process, and
cycle times began to decline. The company continued to refine its supply
chain processes and developed automated systems to address several of
the newly apparent root causes of order delays. For example, a database
of nonstandard but preapproved contract language was developed. It
helped cut the time needed for contract reviews from over 5 days to less
than 1 day. After 10 months, the company had exceeded its initial goal—
order-fulfillment cycle time averaged just over 3 days (see Figure 5-4).
FIGURE 3–9
Order-fulfillment process at Company X after RACI analysis.
Receive
Order
Update
Order
Information
Approval
Exceptions
Field Sales
Office
Enter
Order
Verify
Customer
and
Product
Data
No
Correct
Yes
Review
Contract
& Pricing
Validate
Deviations
from
Standard
Yes
Approval
Needed
No
Sales Order
Management
Release
Order
Pick
Order
Pack &
Ship
Order
Shipping