Coordinating Supply Chain Data

Overview: The article says that with American businesses losing billions of dollars in sales every year from supply chain inefficiencies, companies need solutions that let them provide exactly the right data and goods to the right customers, partners and employees at exactly the right places and times. But many organizations' financial, inventory, warehouse-management, fulfillment and other critical business systems reside in a hodgepodge of legacy and multiple vendors' applications. Such mélanges make synchronizing internal applications with suppliers' software one of the most costly and complex supply chain challenges that companies face. Experts believe that significant supply chain information improvements will result only when companies can synchronize data throughout the supply chain. Certainly, organizations must improve their supply chain information processes. Two primary supply chain complexities involve data ownership and the reticence of companies to share sensitive and potentially competitive information with their supply chain partners. There is a lot of confusion with regard to who owns the supply chain data. Companies usually do not even trust their own data, let alone data of their trading partners. Because not all supply chain processes require real-time data synchronization, companies must determine which data integration approaches to use and how often to use them based on the importance of the data. Synchronized supply chain information ensures that companies doing business in today's tough economy deliver the right data to the right people at the right time.

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Format: HTML | Date: May 2003 | Pages: 2