First Scenario
Mike: “Hello Bob. We have a big order that is starting production next week. Let’s make sure everything is to finish that up.”
Bob: “Yeah Mike, just got a health check report from one of the equipment on our main production line. If we run the order through that line, the equipment will need maintenance midway through the job. We need to switch the order to the secondary line.”
Mike: “Wow, I love the fact that the machine is telling us it will need repair before it breaks down. Isn’t it great when technology works? Let’s switch the order to the secondary line and schedule the maintenance.”
Bob: “The machine already scheduled the maintenance.”
Second Scenario
Rebecca, a senior executive of a large organization, sitting in a meeting with a potential customer wants to know the inventory levels. She doesn’t have computer access. She quickly thinks, ‘Sarah would know.’ Then she types a message on a phone to Sarah ‘What’s our inventory level as of right now?’ Sarah quickly responds with answers. Rebecca can now answer the customer’s questions. Sarah is a WhatsApp bot.
Third Scenario
“We need Joe,” Someone yells.
“Why?” Someone shouting back.
“Well, each day we run this spreadsheet to tell us which orders we have to prioritize. We cannot find the spreadsheet and Joe is the only one who knows where to find the right version of it.”
“But why can’t we look in the system to find out orders.”
“We do not have good data in the system, and I do not trust it to give us the right answer.”
Transform Your Supply Chain Using Intelligent Technology
Which of the above scenarios can you imagine happening within your organization? Intelligent technology enables a connected, responsive, real-time, and reliable supply chain but lack of trust in the system starts to create chaos. Many organizations are starting to use intelligent technology to transform their supply chain, to react to customer demands faster, reduce time to launch new products, reduce production downtime and subsequently reduce production costs are some of many benefits that companies have recouped from using intelligent technology. According to data from SAP, 60% of human tasks will be automated by 2025 and we can have 99% accuracy in voice and video recognition by 2020. In a truly connected, real-time supply chain, people will spend more time addressing the exceptions that lead to better service levels rather than chasing which version of the certain spreadsheet to use to start the production for the day.
The Foundations for the Journey Towards an Intelligent Enterprise
Yet the magic does not happen by simply implementing intelligent technology. Does your organization trust the data? Do you have the right business rules set up in the system? Does anyone monitor the business rules to make sure they are effective? Does your organization look at supply chain as an end to end integrated function or work in silos? All of these are the foundation for the journey toward an intelligent enterprise. SAP S/4HANA system is not magically going to work better if decades of old business processes and practices are migrated over from the older system. SAP IBP is not going to solve your issues if the same bad data is fed into it. For technology to deliver the results to become an intelligent enterprise, the organization needs to go through a transformation as well as build the foundation on good data.
To learn more how you can start your journey to become an intelligent enterprise read about our oVo® Methodology. 2027 is just around the corner!!! For more information on this topic, read our white paper about leveraging the digital supply chain and the intelligent enterprise.
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