5 Ways to Make Your Supply Chain Run More Efficiently
Even if you have been running supply chains for decades, and are considered one of the best in your field, there comes a time where every supply chain manager needs to take a step back to analyse their work and make any improvements they deem necessary. Here are 5 ways you can make your supply chain run more efficiently.
- Increase Visibility
Hopefully you’ve heard the phrase “supply chain visibility” before. If not, supply chain visibility refers to your organisation’s ability to monitor and check every part of your product as it makes its way from your supplier to you. You can increase your visibility by granting your suppliers the ability to check your inventory in real-time. This will help them to better understand your situation and how they can help you in the future.
- Automate Where You Need To
Implementing automated components into your organisation’s supply chain doesn’t always make sense for every business but for the ones that it does, this greatly increases your supply chain’s efficiency in a massively impactful way. If you decide to make any changes, do your homework and make sure that all of your new automated parts are well-managed and adequately maintained.
- Implement A Good Maintenance Routine
Your fleet will never run more efficiently than it does when it has been well maintained. Ensure you complete all preventative maintenance annually on your vehicles. Make sure that your trucks use good quality fuel, keep an eye on red diesel prices to make sure you’re getting the best deal! Delays in any part of your supply chain can cause significant issues and can result in additional delays amongst the rest of your supply chain. With transportation being such an integral part of supply chain, making sure yours runs smoothly and effectively will go a long way to improving the efficiency of your supply chain’s overall performance.
- Nurture Partnerships
Evaluate which of your suppliers add the most value to your supply chain and then nurture those relationships. Make use of suppliers that can help you create innovative enhancements to your supply line, products or services. Great suppliers play an important role by becoming excellent process enablers. Look for opportunities to improve your current processes by leveraging your supplier’s capabilities to empower both of your organisations. Your supply chain doesn’t just begin in a warehouse and end in store; it ends in the hands of the customers so you need to improve your experience in order to improve theirs.
- Training Is More Important Than Ever
In this day and age, especially now with social distancing measures, it can be easy to have your workers fall behind in training activities. You need to make sure your labour force stay updated on the latest policies and procedures that have been agreed upon by upper management. Communication is more important now than it ever has been. Make sure that you train your workforce comprehensively with a training program set out specifically to highlight and fix any issues with your current operations.