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.