Optimize supply chains with the Connected Chain Manager

Intelligent supply chain management creates transparency, improves processes, and reduces work and costs. valantic’s Connected Chain Manager (CCM) visualizes relevant information such as inventories, throughput times, parts lists, requirements, and delivery capacities, which in turn provides inter-company planning security, even in a multi-level supply chain.

Good supply chain management ensures that the right goods are in the right place at the right time. But watch out: if one link is missing, the entire chain falls apart. When the coronavirus struck, bottlenecks and shutdowns threatened the supply chain in many places. Trucks were stopped in traffic, the container ship needed repair, the employees at a supplier were striking – and then the supply chain is interrupted and machines shut down. Shutdowns are expensive.

That’s why supply chain managers and decision-makers should take action early on in order to avoid cost-intensive bottlenecks and remain competitive. The motto is “transparency through collaboration.” Frequently IT-supported transparency is lacking or insufficient, both within the company and beyond company boundaries. Thus far, some companies have digitalized only a small number of their business processes and linked these to one another; other companies have progressed further and are working on delivering components with a flexible just-in-time strategy.

Three benefits of the Connected Chain Manager

valantic’s Connected Chain Manager (CCM) offers companies a uniform, efficient collaboration solution for inter-company cooperation. A Software-as-a Service (SaaS) platform, it connects all partners along the entire supply chain via a uniform interface and can handle a wide variety of system environments. In particular, the CCM offers three benefits for optimizing supply chains. For a view of the supply chain is always a view to the future.

1. Transparency thanks to supply chain collaboration

An essential success factor is interruption-free monitoring of the supply chain.Only in a transparent supply chain where all partners collaborate with one another can bottlenecks be detected early based on inventories, storage locations, and delivery times. In a first step, the Connected Chain Manager connects as many suppliers and customers as desired and visualizes the entire supply network, including all relevant information such as inventories, throughput times, parts lists, requirements, and capacities. The goal should be a common database for all supply chain partners in the cloud, a “single point of truth.” This provides inter-level and inter-company transparency and thus a comprehensive view of the entire supply chain.

In addition to transparency, data security is guaranteed at all times. Each supply chain partner retains control of its data and decides itself who may see it. The cloud software can be configured online and is therefore ideally suited for critical situations in which quick transparency along the supply chain counts the most. This puts entrepreneurial decision-makers in a position to use the CCM to analyze their current supply situation in detail and right down to the location and material number.

2. Optimization of existing processes in the supply chain

Thanks to the newly created transparency, decision-makers can analyze processes, dependencies, and interactions even across company boundaries. As a result, optimization potential can be detected, suitable measures taken, and processes optimized. KPIs can help track measures already in progress and detect new optimization potential. Using collaboration solutions integrated into the software, the partners coordinate their cooperation and measure tracking.

3. Reduce costs and work in the supply chain

Transparency is the most important prerequisite for optimizing the supply chain. It means that you can make adjustments that are not directly at your own company. For example, unnecessary costs arise due to overstocks, capacities that are too low or too high, excess trips or incorrect or incomplete deliveries. The Connected Chain Manager minimizes unnecessary costs and improves the service level at the same time.

With the triad of transparency through collaboration, the process optimization that relies on this transparency, and the resulting cost reductions, supply chain managers are in a position to optimize their supply chains comprehensively and for the long run. Bottlenecks are detected early. If a truck gets stuck in traffic or production breaks down elsewhere, supply chain managers with the CCM can react quickly and in goal-oriented, proactive fashion before the company suffers any damage.