Supply Chain Transparency and Collaboration

In a globalized world, companies are confronted with a continuously increasing number of customers, suppliers and product variants. As a result, the complexity and requirements posed to supply chain management (SCM) are increasing. To maintain competitiveness and profitability, companies are highly dependent on a holistic SCM and the mastery of the associated complexity – internally, across company boundaries and along entire value chains.

If, for example, a supply bottleneck occurs somewhere in the world, the entire supply chain can temporarily come to a standstill or even collapse. Even many minor incidents can bring sand into the gears of supply chains: a traffic jam on the highway, a communication error between plants or a lengthy machine breakdown. Wherever companies are heavily dependent on the smooth running of all processes, there is even the threat of production downtimes and losses of millions in the event of an emergency. IT-supported transparency within the company, let alone across company boundaries to upstream stages of the supply chain, is often inadequate.

valantic’s wayCloud Platform builds bridges: As an innovative, Web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, it connects all partners along the entire supply chain via a simple interface. In doing so, a multitude of relevant information is exchanged, which offers advantages to all parties involved both in critical situations and in regular operations: improved early detection of bottlenecks, fast and aligned coordination in case of a crisis as well as improved planning reliability and efficiency gains ultimately increase the competitiveness of the entire supply chain.

Globalization and ever-increasing customer requirements put pressure on companies to deliver faster and faster while reducing costs for logistics, storage and transport. The resulting increased complexity in one’s own company and along entire supply chains not only leads to growing intransparency, but also entails coordination efforts and loss of control. This contradicts core objectives of Supply Chain Management (SCM), which aims for supply chains being more efficient, flexible and reactive, while at the same time both costs and efforts should be made transparent and systematically reduced.

In order to achieve these goals nevertheless, innovative and tailor-made IT solutions are required to bring together all relevant information. These solutions must not only focus on the own organization, but on the entire supply chain including all stakeholders – and if possible in real time. Not least for these reasons, the trend is moving more and more towards cloud solutions or web-based Software-as-a-Service platforms such as valantic’s wayCloud Platform.

Immediate reaction in exceptional situations

Many heterogeneous, monolithic IT systems, including SCM and ERP systems, are usually in use along the value chains. In exceptional cases, such as machine failures, immediate notifications and a clear flow of information are essential. This is the only way to quickly analyze and evaluate the existing situation in order to initiate and coordinate suitable countermeasures. What happens if the affected companies and their systems do not communicate with each other at all or only in a very delayed manner?

In such cases, the affected stages of the supply chain are often notified about a potentially critical situation far too late. As a result, attempts are hectically made, usually bilaterally, to obtain the most necessary information by telephone and e-mail in order to initiate emergency measures and to identify a responsible contact person. Unfortunately, a coordinated, efficient counter-reaction usually falls by the wayside.

After consolidating all data, the structured monitoring of your supply chains with the help of suitable key figures let you keep an overview at all times. In this way, bottlenecks, exceptions and risks can be identified at an early stage. Bad surprises and enormous costs (e.g. due to missing parts or extra tours) can thus be avoided. Especially in critical situations, but also during regular operation, communication is based on a common view and a single point of truth. Dashboards show the current situation in real time at a glance.

valantic’s wayCloud Platform offers the right key figures and reports for almost every application. Cross-tier stock ranges, capacitive utilization, supply bottlenecks and much more. You have the choice: meaningful standard reports? Or a maximum of flexibility? Whatever you decide on: The common data base of the supply chain partners enables real-time visualization and updating of all key figures and thus always a holistic view of the current situation, future developments and analyses of the past. In this way, you gradually increase the competitiveness and performance of your entire supply chain.

With the wayCloud Platform, you can map inventory ranges to the material number level for all integrated suppliers with central monitoring. Incoming material flows and inventories in your suppliers’ outgoing goods are allocated according to your requirements (delivery calls or orders). Ranges are generated, which also consider delivery times and defined minimum targets. If the inventory ranges drop below a specified threshold or if there is a supply shortage due to a late arrival, you can see this from the appropriate KPI right away. You can react quickly and communicate proactively with your suppliers. You also know whether there is sufficient inventory at your suppliers and you can request a special transport if necessary. Since the wayCloud Platform also works for all partners, you can create this transparency for your customers and ensure that they generate sufficient inventory ranges with their deliveries and inventories in outgoing goods and can satisfy all needs.

This increases the reliability of material supply along the entire supply chain, makes any bottlenecks visible early on, and improves communication and coordination thanks to common data stocks.

In order to make not just the short-term supply situation transparent to suppliers and customers, coordinate and monitor it, there is so-called delivery capacity coverage in the wayCloud Platform. You can use this function to work with your partners to synchronize and plan medium- and long-term demands and delivery capacities on the monthly level.

For example, your customer provides you with a preview of his needs on the monthly level and would like to know if you can fulfill these. You can simply transfer delivery capacities on the material number level, also with flexibility upward and downward, to the relevant partner. Both you and your customer see immediately whether delivery capacities are sufficient. Meaningful KPIs and a graphic presentation of the data clarify the situation.

Another example is the planning of your demands with regard to your suppliers. They have already entered delivery capacities for each material and every month in the coming year in wayCloud Platform. Now, you can compare secondary demands, which are calculated using your customers’ demands. Having all this information in one place puts you in a position to plan your delivery calls so that they are appropriate for secondary demands and the promised delivery capacities. You can react early on to deviations and, for example, smooth out demand peaks or request additional delivery capacities.

With the order list, you can communicate orders, delivery calls, and other demands to your suppliers. They can either confirm quantities and dates or communicate new date and quantity proposals. In case of changes or confirmations, the status of the affected data records is updated and written back to your leading ERP system if necessary. This way, you make agreements via a single platform and maintain an overview at all times. Agreements that are otherwise made on the telephone or in other ways are documented centrally on the platform and can be viewed and are transparent for all participants. The order list is therefore an ideal instrument for daily cooperation between customers and suppliers.

Use the integrated collaboration possibilities, such as the list of open issues, in order to prioritize, categorize, work through, and document tasks efficiently. You can create various lists for different projects and partners.

The lists can be used internally and in cooperation with your customers and suppliers. Here, as many external partners can be invited to cooperate as you wish, also in the form of guest users if they are not themselves active on the system. Within a few minutes, you can start a new initiative for coordinating and documenting tasks. On request, you will be notified via e-mail of changes to your tasks, so you will remain informed about the current state of affairs at all times. You can incorporate additional information such as files and screenshots easily and monitor progress with appropriate KPIs (e.g. adherence to deadline).

Network across several levels with your partners, from parts suppliers to end product manufacturers. Thanks to the exchange of data, such as primary demands, backlog information, and inventories, inventory ranges are calculated considering the entire supply chain. This is how bottleneck components and critical paths can be identified, inventories within the chain optimized, and bull-whip effects prevented.

Get even more detailed information about your global supply chain and key risks associated with it with Prewave’s risk intelligence platform. Prewave analyzes the supplier information of the network constructed in the wayCloud Platform and creates risk profiles based on historical data. Prewave is therefore able to generate alerts, in many cases even before the event actually occurs. The combination of the material flow mapped in the wayCloud platform and Prewave’s risk information provides a significantly better data basis for making essential supply chain decisions.

The wayCloud Platform can be set up independently online within a short time. This allows you to immediately integrate first supply chain partners, upload initial data and create quick reports.