MSG Team's other articles

9658 How Project Managers Can Benefit from Knowledge Management Systems

Project Managers Have to Learn to Deal with Uncertainties and Risks Project Management is the art and science of balancing competing interests, prioritizing the resources and their deployment, and is also situational in nature meaning that project managers often have to respond to evolving situations and circumstances. This means that uncertainty and unpredictability are the […]

8787 Six Sigma – Introduction to Analyze Phase

The Six Sigma philosophy believes in statistical facts. There is no room for error and therefore there is no room for guessing or judgement. Therefore the few inputs that were guessed for being the critical ones in the earlier stages of define and measure now need to be confirmed with statistical analysis. The purpose of […]

9152 Employee Relationship Management (ERM) through Information System

Introduction Employee relationship management is management of relationship between employees and employers. It is made up of initiatives which improve employee morale and loyalty towards the company. Employee relationship management approach looks to maintain effective relationship through three way approach of continuous communication, conflict resolution and employee development. Importance of Employee Relationship Management Employee is […]

9264 The Facebook Debacle and the “Own Your Data” Movement

The world media was recently rocked by a data breach scandal involving Facebook. This scandal wherein Facebook had allowed a third party named Cambridge Analytica to misuse the information of its users created a ruckus. Various campaigns broke out, and activists wanted to ensure that the integrity of the user’s data was not compromised by […]

11300 Six Sigma Team Dynamics

A surprising number of projects begin without considering the human resource aspect in mind. If a Six Sigma project were to be initiated without a project charter or without an explicit data collection plan, it would be considered lunatic behaviour. However, the same cannot be said about the Six Sigma team. Countless Project leads have […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

Supply Chain Management (SCM): Improvement of supply chain is one of the last frontiers for improving productivity and supply chain visibility is the most important challenge faced by supply chain professionals. This is more relevant in the context of retail, consumer electrical and electronics industries where organizations are challenged by an environment of distributed operations, high demand volatility and rapid product evaluation.

A properly implemented supply chain solution enables an organization to quickly respond to supply chain aberrations, and provides following benefits:

  1. Accurately anticipate customer demand and respond quickly and efficiently. Quickly sense and respond to any changes in the marketplace.

  2. Improving extended supply chain visibility and better collaboration encompassing vendors, customers, distributors, transporters and even competitors. Better order promising through increased Work in progress (WIP) and end item inventory visibility

  3. Closed loop planning and execution, resulting increased factory throughput.

  4. Co-ordinate marketing of end products through active collaboration with business partners.

SCM tools: Considering the importance of SCM, the reputed ERP vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and Infor started to add SCM solutions to their ERP offerings. Also best of breed offering from niche vendors e.g. Manugistic also started to appear in the marketplace. The product suite offered by theses solution providers broadly comprise of following components:

  1. Demand Planner: Provides tools to integrate demand and supply plan. Demand planner comes with collaborative tools where everyone with a stake (including business partners) on demand plan, are brought together. It provides various forecasting algorithm with lifecycle modeling ability which gives an accurate understanding of rising/ dying (obsolescence) cycles of an item.

  2. Advanced Planner: Provides strong scenario based tools for Sales and Operational Planning(S& OP), where any change in supply chain, such as breakdown of a manufacturing capacity, is accounted for in real time.

  3. Advanced scheduler: Provides, in harmony with supply chain demand projections, multi site production schedules in most efficient manner so as to minimize set up time, reduce cycle time and maximize throughput.

  4. Event management: Provides response to unusual event which may have an impact on supply chain such as new product launch, unusual weather, natural disaster etc.

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM): In the context of restructuring of extended supply chain, more and more organizations are asking their suppliers to integrate their business system for real time collaboration. Sharing information with suppliers now goes beyond the realm of EDI.

SRM facilitates information integration and tracking in real time in respect of several aspects such as delivery schedules, delivery information, inventory, capacity planning, quotation, RFP, quality and credit. However, the extent of integration depends upon the criticality of supplier in the business context of the organizational need.

SRM provides maximum value for integrating suppliers that have strategic stake such as an automobile ancillary, contract manufacturer for a retail chain.

SRM tools are mostly used to complement existing functionality of ERP system. Some of the specific functionalities of SRM are as follows:

  • Collaborative planning and scheduling.
  • Web based private trade exchange.
  • Monitoring of incoming goods through GPS tracking.
  • Dashboard providing real time suppliers’ performance.

Warehouse Management System (WMS): Like warehousing module of an ERP system, the primary purpose of WMS is to control, storage and movement of goods. However, in the context of recent setting up of huge automated warehouse and advent of tracking technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency ID), the limited warehousing functionality of an ERP system is not often adequate.

WMS helps to organize work including allocation of resources and optimize storage and distribution network.

Very briefly, WMS comprises of following functionalities:

  1. Marinating multiple Stock Keeping Units (SKU) for thousands of items.

  2. Supports high volume wave picking/ zone picking.

  3. Supports assigning, scheduling and monitoring of labor performance.

  4. Increase inventory speed through cross docking (unloading incoming goods and immediately loading in an outbound vehicle).

  5. Automated data collection through RFID and bar code technology.

  6. Integration with materials handling equipments deployed in the warehouse, such as conveyors, fork lift truck, within the automated warehouse.

  7. Generation of electronic advanced shipping notification (ASN).

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

ERP Service Module – Call Handling and Service Orders Control

MSG Team

Why are Companies Constantly Upgrading their ERP Systems?

MSG Team

Users Interface and Users Management in ERP System

MSG Team