Business Intelligence in Supply Chain

 

Introduction:

Over past few years, BI has been used in many business functions to increase the efficiency, to improve decision making and instant identification of opportunities. But Supply chain Management is one area where the use of BI is most effective.

Supply chain management process is basically very complex by nature. It has processes like purchasing, procurement and inventory management, as well as activities like distribution, transportation and logistics must be flawlessly coordinated.

The data of Supply Chain can come from internal applications, external ones which are managed by outside partners or the data from the web. This data can be converted into timely, valuable and relevant information which can be used by the supply chain operators. This will eventually enhance efficiency, cost effectiveness, profitability and customer satisfaction.

It becomes particularly important when companies continue to globalize and expand their businesses across different geographies. Different currencies, cultures and regulations make it difficult to ensure rapid communication and collaboration among all partners. But BI can help ease these issues and enable smooth supply chain operations across the globe.

Benefits of BI in Supply Chain:


  1. Enhance Workflow design and other strategic planning activities:

By using BI tools, complex workflows can be simplified using Data visualisations and reports. Accurate data can leverage various opportunities which will affect the strategic planning



2. Improved collaboration and communication with all key stakeholders:



Use of BI will enable sharing of appropriate information to different stakeholders at the right time. This will decrease the communication gap between the stakeholders.



3. Track tactical processes and identify breakdowns before they impact fulfillment:



The processes which are of prime importance can be monitored and any breakdown in it can be easily identified before they impact the fulfilment.



4. Accurate measurement of performance of supply chain partners:



As BI can handle real time data, it helps in accurate measurement of different parameters which contribute in performance measurement.



5. Improving cost effectiveness:



By using right information, one can take business decisions which will reduce the overall cost.



6. Business Intelligence can set defined data thresholds which can be used to generate real-time alerts when critical conditions arise. Subsequently, this information can be leveraged to generate pre-defined automated alerts, thereby eliminating the need for manual action from supply chain personnel



KPI’s for Supply chain Management:

  1. Carrying Cost Of Inventory
  2. Inventory Turnover
  3. Order Tracking
  4. Inventory to Sales Ratio
  5. Units Per Transaction
  6. Rate Of Return
  7. Order Status
  8. Inventory Accuracy
  9. Back Order Rate
  10. Perfect Order Rate
  11. Logistics Cost per Customer
  12. Order Picking Accuracy Rate
  13. Warehouse Shrinkage
  14. Storage Space Utilization

 



Case Study:

Company profile: DMA is a national food service distribution company founded in 1986 which provides supply chain services to multi-unit restaurants. With the annual revenue of $3 billion, DMA distributers purchase products from hundreds of brands like Coca-cola, Kraft, Kellogg’s etc. and distribute them to leading restaurants like Potbelly, PF Chang’s and Famous Dave’s.

Problem: DMA’s supply chain efficiency was reduced due to the expense of extra deliveries and customer pick-ups. This problem mainly occurred because of non-scheduled product purchases the customer made.

Solution: DMA partnered with a BI solution providing company to design reporting that would identify occurrences of non-scheduled product purchases that result in extra deliveries and customer pick-ups.

The report helped to identify that certain stores were not building orders in an effective manner where products were either missing from orders or ordered in the wrong quantities. This resulted in extra deliveries or would call pick-ups to ensure an adequate supply. These stores were guided to make better use of the BI tools within the order entry system which reduced by 50% the time it took to assemble the orders with improved accuracy.

To learn more about how BI can help in the Supply chain domain and request a live demo, get in touch with Helical Insight
Log on to www.helicalinsight.com

You May Also Like

Leave a Reply

Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered