Effective supply chain management faces significant challenges, including aligning sales forecasts, optimising plant capacity, securing reliable warehousing and transportation partners, and ensuring timely deliveries to customers. Transportation, often market-driven and unpredictable, is a critical yet non-dependent link in the supply chain.
Complexity drives technology’s essential role in planning, data validation, analysis, warehousing, and tracking for businesses
To address these complexities, advanced planning systems are vital at each stage. While forecasting may lack precision, meticulous planning can mitigate variations, reducing the risk of supply chain errors and enhancing overall efficiency.
Logistics expectations
As a shipper, the foremost expectation from logistics partners is robust infrastructure to meet specific needs. Given that internal resources may not always suffice, strong collaborations are essential. Relying on a single transport provider can be inadequate; thus, engaging multiple vendors by region ensures uninterrupted vehicle availability, even in turbulent periods. Additionally, the transporter’s risk tolerance plays a pivotal role, particularly in volatile markets, making the careful selection of logistics partners crucial for supply chain resilience.
Logistics metrics
Vehicle availability stands as the primary indicator. We must consistently ensure an adequate vehicle supply to meet demand. Another significant metric is Transit Time Adherence. While transit delays can lead to penalties, they may not offset sales losses. Therefore, a quality service provider guarantees on-time delivery of major consignments and offers alternatives in case of issues. Transit Damage represents a crucial parameter, with the goal of minimising damage incidents to zero or near zero. Finally, cost-effectiveness and competitiveness remain vital, with good transport services providing competitive pricing and delivering value for money.
Trends
The future of supply chain management in the consumer goods industry is critical for operational efficiency and product quality. Inefficient supply chains not only increase costs but also impact product shelf life, potentially leading to sales losses. The current complex landscape necessitates the adoption of new technological tools. These technologies play a vital role in planning, data validation, analysis, warehousing, tracking, and more, becoming essential for businesses. While some of these tools are expensive, they may not be suitable for low-margin products, requiring further cost reduction. With numerous technological options available, careful selection is crucial, but the decreasing cost of implementation makes embracing them more feasible.
Strategies
For a cordial and beneficial relationship, deep coordination is an essential requirement. We have started building up alignment with logistics service providers. Transparency in data sharing is quite good. Regular close interactions helped to take the decision to implement TMS, and it is underway. This will ensure that all existing pain areas will be taken care of. This should make the system more efficient.
Sustainability
As far as sustainability is concerned, a lot of initiatives are still to be planned. However, for all NCR movements, which is a significant business, vehicles use only CNG and are environmentally friendly. We have been exploring other sustainability options, including the use of electric vehicles.
