If there’s one fear shared by nearly all manufacturing supply chain planners and managers, it’s disruption. Small or large-scale breakdowns in the movement and flow of products or component parts from Point A to Point B. Every year, manufacturing companies dedicate thousands of man hours and resources to avoiding supply chain disruptions in an effort to maintain productivity, reliability, and on-time delivery for customers. But even with the amount of time and effort manufacturers put into combating the potential for disruptions, the nature of a global supply chain is that disruptions will happen at some point along a company’s value chain, and what will determine a company’s resiliency is how said company responds and adjusts to these disruptions.

No matter the size or impact of the disruption,  the ability to react and correct disruptions at the production, inventory, or transportation level depends largely on understanding the kinds of disruptions and how at-risk a manufacturing company is to experiencing each type. Given the interconnected nature of today’s global supply chain and expansive network of production facilities, warehouses, and transportation hubs, it would appear there is more opportunity than ever before for manufacturing companies to encounter disruptions or breakdowns at more touch points across their supply network.

Understanding the relationship between S&OP and S&OE is akin to the novel versus the short story. With the novel, an author more often than not takes the long view of the narrative, spanning large swatches of time with a multitude of characters in order to tell a fully-realized, fleshed-out, and satisfying story. On the other hand, a short story is a much more compressed form of narrative where the author focuses on one, two, or maybe three characters in a more narrow window of time with a specific set of themes, tropes, or conceits in order to give the reader a mere glimpse into the lives of those inhabiting the story.

Both of these narrative modes rely on similar principles of storytelling, but they deploy those principles in slightly different ways for a desired impact - the novel a more long-term, wide-ranging look at a world, and the short story a more compact, micro view of characters, situations, and contexts. The similarities and differences between the novel and the short story mirrors essentially the relationship between S&OP and S&OE in today’s global manufacturing and supply chain. S&OP allows manufacturing companies to create integrated demand planning between sales and production teams for the short to mid-term (the novel game) while S&OE gives planners and managers the capacity to examine their supply situation on a more micro level (the short story).

Think about the process of writing an email for a moment. How do you go about this task? Do you compose the email in one session without filtering what you want to say or the information you want to convey, only then to go back and reread and edit the email at some later date? Or (and perhaps mostly likely, at least for many people), do you compose the email and edit as you go, deleting phrases, substituting words, or changing ideas and adapting the information in the moment as necessary for the best possible communication?

Odds are the most common method of emailing is the latter where edits and alterations are made in real-time as thoughts, ideas, and information hits you during the composing process. Where the first example may be a relic of the past when typewriters or handwritten correspondence was the norm, digital communication and the capacity to edit, rewrite, and revise in the moment means greater maneuverability in creating moments for effective, streamlined, and more productive communication. Where writing and editing/revising were at one time two distinct processes, today these functions are more or less integrated into one function with a greater level of process efficacy.

For all the bluster about the latest and greatest technological advancements and developments in today’s global supply chain management, it’s important to remember what the true essence of supply chain logistics revolves around: putting the right product in front of the right people at the right time. It may sound simplistic, but as global partner networks continue to expand and already variant-rich industries continue to diversify, it becomes increasingly difficult to execute a very basic premise.

Consider this question: Is simply doing enough actually enough? Should the status quo be an appropriate goal? Or, in the sphere of today’s global manufacturing pipeline, is merely administering an adequate supply stream sufficient enough to compete in a complex, variant-rich marketplace? In each of these questions, the answer is no, and manufacturing companies are quickly realizing their supply streams have to do more than simply move products from the production floor to the customer’s door. Instead, supply logistics have to be drivers of growth at each touch point of a company’s value chain.

A 2014 survey released by professional services group Deloitte showed 79 percent of companies with high-performing supply chains achieved revenue growth greater than other companies within their same industry. If nothing else, this clearly illustrates the connection between a well-structured, highly-functioning supply chain and business growth and profitability.

What’s one of the most undervalued elements in creating E2E supply chain visibility? It might surprise you, but this overlooked aspect of supply chain management is perhaps one of the most critical ingredients in how companies successfully move material supply to the production floor and finished products to the customer’s door. Of course, we’re talking about transportation.

That’s right, transport logistics, while perhaps underutilized, is a significant driver in how manufacturing companies administer, oversee, and evaluate the overall health, sustainability, and efficiency of their supply situation. It’s somewhat difficult to understand why transport logistics often gets lost in the fray of global supply chain management. Perhaps it’s because more emphasis is placed on operations at earlier stages in the value chain such as planning and procurement. Or perhaps it’s because the facilitating of effective production programs is often at the forefront of the minds of planners and managers. Either way, transport logistics, though often neglected, can either be a significant boon or detriment to how effective a manufacturing company conducts itself.

Planning. Replanning. Forecasting. What-if scenarios. Data gathering and analysis.

These are the tools, strategies, and methods modern manufacturing companies have at their disposal to ensure production facilities optimize their inventory, allocate jobs efficiently, pull component parts from containers, and move finished products from the production floor to the customer’s door on-time and within delivery windows. But while these safeguards in demand planning give manufacturing companies some level of insight and maneuverability in responding to alterations in rules or restraints in production programs, many of the most significant events or occurrences in today’s global manufacturing supply chain happen in the moment and without much warning or advance notice.

Digitization in today’s global supply chain is most often conceived as a building tool for manufacturing companies. Whether it’s constructing a more efficient, streamlined planning and production scheme or creating enhanced methods of procurement, inventory management, job allocation, and transport logistics, digitization is a supply chain management platform whereby companies can leverage greater efficacy to grow their business, create stronger partner networks, and leverage competitive advantages in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

But digitization can also be a critical tool for deconstructing, particularly when it comes to breaking down planning silos across a manufacturing company’s entire value chain. Because digitization centers on decentralizing data hubs and creating a more collaborative environment between the planning and production stages of the manufacturing cycle, traditional planning silos can be eliminated in favor of fostering stronger links from the C suite to the production floor — a philosophy that’s becoming increasingly valuable in modern supply chain management.  

Today’s manufacturing and supply chain planners and managers are inundated with concepts and strategies purporting to add value to their overall value chain. Whether it’s integrating intelligent planning systems or working to streamline their manufacturing processes from procurement to production, manufacturing companies must seek value in any number of ways in order to remain competitive and agile in an increasingly global marketplace.

One place where manufacturing companies have been comparatively slow in realizing and leveraging value is enterprise resource planning (ERP), or more specifically, adopting a postmodern ERP mindset. Whether it’s because the lack of visibility surrounding these concepts or a failure to fully embrace them as part of lean manufacturing and supply chain management, postmodern ERP is perhaps one of the most least understood or realized element of manufacturing and supply logistics. Not only does postmodern ERP have the potential to transform a company’s manufacturing and supply logistics, but it’s a key element in cutting the complexity of global supply chain management and leveraging enhanced operational functionality.

Competition. More so than ever before, today’s manufacturing companies are facing increasingly intense competition in an ever-expanding global marketplace. With new and emerging markets coming online in disparate parts of the globe, today’s manufacturing and supply network is growing more diverse, complex, and intertwined, and manufacturing companies need more powerful, integrated, and intelligent solutions to cut this complexity and maintain the efficacy of their planning and production programs.

Enter advanced analytics and its ability to give manufacturing companies the insight and visibility into their overall supply and production platforms. With an endgame of helping manufacturing companies analyze and sort data, streamline processes, and increase the efficiency of planning and production programs, advanced analytics is a critical value proposition in a variant-rich industry where network partners operate at numerous disparate points across the globe. Because advanced analytics relies in large part on the adoption of intelligent technologies or solutions like Industry 4.0, Big Data, and The Internet of Things (IOT), planners and managers have the ability to put large amounts of data and reporting to work to leverage lean manufacturing principles for greater derived value.