HOW TO BUILD SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE THROUGH DATA?

Today’s supply chains are highly susceptible to disruption due to congested global transportation networks and just-in-time manufacturing techniques, and the last few years have provided a stark example of how flimsy they are.

The COVID-19 disruption had authentic effects on the world economy; it is estimated that $4 trillion in global revenue was lost due to the pandemic. The war in Ukraine is causing additional problems this year, such as rising freight costs and product shortages. How can manufacturers strengthen their supply chains’ resilience and expand their businesses despite the ongoing economic unrest? The key is data. For manufacturers, a data-driven approach can provide cleaner, more sustainable operations and agile responses in the face of disruption and customer demand.

“To achieve this, there are three key strategies manufacturers can adopt which will enable them to build their businesses even in turbulent economic times: improving supply chain resiliency, powering industry 4.0 analytics, and enhancing the customer experience while generating new revenue streams,” says Mohamed Zouari, General Manager at Snowflake Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.

Using Data To Bolster Resiliency

All parties in the supply chain must communicate effectively with one another for a product to be manufactured and reach consumers, but this has become increasingly challenging in recent years. “Manufacturers can solve issues with data that identifies limitations in raw materials or provides customer and market characteristics. But this information frequently resides not only on the manufacturer’s systems but also on those of the ecosystem of third parties it collaborates with, such as clients, suppliers, and logistics providers,” Mohamed adds. Gaining visibility and spotting opportunities for improvement requires collaboration with partners from across the ecosystem.

The difficulty lies in combining that data to produce a ‘big picture’ understanding of current events. Data must be accessible to allow analysis to spot supply chain risks and potential hiccups. Manufacturers must also securely and legally share data with partners externally. By doing this, data sets can be improved, providing a complete picture of the entire supply chain that keeps everyone up to date.

Once this end-to-end view has been established, analytical technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can offer insights in the form of alerts, forecasts, and business intelligence recommendations. “Insights such as these give businesses the luxury of agility - the ability to proactively spot a problem or predict an outcome and act on these insights quickly, based on an understanding of the real-time situation. If manufacturers identify an issue, they can alter their plans. For example, switching suppliers or using another material and being able to inform partners of any changes that might affect them,” states Mohamed.

A Data-Driven Approach To Industry 4.0

Regarding developing technologies, manufacturers also have numerous chances to use data to take advantage of ‘Industry 4.0’ opportunities, improve their intelligence, and adopt more sustainable practices. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is critical to this, with intelligent sensors from factory equipment, robotics, handheld devices, and wearable technology providing a flood of data that, when combined and analysed, can significantly improve production processes’ efficiency and quality.

For far too many manufacturers, this data still needs to be locked away in disparate systems like shop floor systems like Historians, MES, QM, control systems, supply chain management platforms, and ERP (enterprise resource planning) platforms. “Once combined, this data can be used to perform many tasks, such as predictive maintenance.” This involves taking data from equipment used to predict how it might perform, for example, when machinery breakdown is imminent or a building’s energy use, to formulate plans that take advantage of the correct type of energy at the right cost, to help organisations hit their environmental goals. “Which will be a priority as we enter the new year, with almost half of the British manufacturers (49%) planning to invest in green technologies for energyefficiency measures over the next 12 months.”

Improving customer experience and harnessing new opportunities

Smart, connected products allow manufacturers to use IoT data to improve the customer experience both during production and after. These products continue to report back to the manufacturer after being used by the customer, giving the manufacturer a chance to offer distinctive sales and services or create entirely new business models.

“These advantages are only possible if the data they produce is gathered, examined, and used immediately.

For instance, performance management, most frequently related to expensive industrial machinery, allows manufacturers to introduce ‘outcome-based services,’ where customers are charged based on increased uptime or better output quality.”

Additionally, this information allows manufacturers to introduce equipment-asa-service (EaaS) offerings, where customers can purchase equipment as needed and pay in related ways.

Similar to smart field services, which rely on information gathered from defective products, these services give service technicians a general idea of the problem and the tools and parts they will need before they even reach the customer’s site. The process’ effectiveness lowers costs and significantly enhances the customer experience.

Meeting The Future

There is no getting around the fact that manufacturers are dealing with a challenging economic environment and will continue to deal with several difficulties in the future. “Manufacturers can weather the storm and expand their businesses, despite what this might imply. All the data at their disposal, from pointof-sale terminals in stores to sensors on forklifts - it all holds value - will be essential to achieving this. Manufacturers will increase their resilience, enhance customer experience, and discover new revenue streams by utilising the data and sharing it with ecosystem partners,” concludes Mohamed.