360° scrutiny of your supply chain data
What is a supply chain control tower?
A control tower is a data dashboard – a central point from where you can connect, view and analyse all the data across your supply chain in (near) real time. A control tower dashboard delivers meaningful insights into activities and disruptions right across the supply chain, allowing for proactive decision making and intervention.
Do you need a control tower?
A traditional supply chain approach (‘Plan – Source – Make – Deliver’) notoriously results in numerous information silos and blind spots, which in turn reduce agility and efficiency.
In contrast, a supply chain control tower provides a connected ecosystem that enables end-to-end supply chain visibility and control.
Control tower features and benefits
A control tower is designed to be a ‘single source of truth’, which constantly enables agile, data-driven decision making across the entire supply chain.
360° visibility. Single source of truth.
Real-time intervention. And proactive supply chain management
Every feature of a control tower offers multiple benefits; the table below summarises the main benefits for each.
Features
- 360° supply chain data mesh captures supply chain data and their relationships
- (Near) real time end-to-end supply chain visibility
- Exception management
- Smart and AI-supported
- Transactional-level visibility of cost to serve
360° supply chain data mesh captures supply chain data and their relationships
Main benefits:
Eliminate information silos and blind spots, reducing operational inefficiencies and costs
‘Single source of truth’: single point of entry to data dashboard, with user-level access control and user-friendly interfaces
Efficient communication and collaboration internally and with suppliers and business partners
End-to-end traceability and chain of custody of products
(Near) real time end-to-end supply chain visibility
Main benefits:
Informed decision making, and resilience and control in times of disruption
Improved customer service and satisfaction
Monitoring and realisation of sustainability (ESG) targets
(Near) real time track and trace including dynamic ETAs and proactive alerting
Exception management
Main benefits:
- Better resource allocation so employees focus on value-adding tasks and mitigation opportunities, rather than fire fighting
Smart and AI-supported
Main benefits:
AI-generated scenarios showing potential solutions and their impact/consequences
End-to-end collaboration, optimisation and automated decisions
Transactional-level visibility of cost to serve
Main benefits:
More accurate planning and budgeting
Align customer segmentation and distribution cost
Benefits at every step in the supply chain
Gathering relevant data in a shared control tower offers many direct and indirect benefits, impacting every aspect of the supply chain. This section summarises some potential challenges in supply chains, and the solutions and benefits that a control tower can provide.
- Planning
- Sourcing
- Manufacturing
- Warehousing and distribution
Planning
Challenges
- Limited (real time) visibility on customer order status or supply chain disruptions
- Redundant inventory to compensate for uncertainty in the supply chain
- Planning activities based on outdated assumptions, leading to suboptimal asset allocation and service level
Control tower solutions and benefits
(Near) real time data collection and analysis within a single source, combined with machine learning and AI for impact visualisation, enables you to anticipate demand, predict and deal with issues more efficiently, update planning parameters and increase forecast accuracy.
Sourcing
Challenges
- Limited (real time) visibility on supplier and purchasing department performance, resulting in uncertainty and deviations in budgeted, contracted and actual prices, and maverick buying
- Blind spots that hinder workflows, payment approvals and financial forecasting
Control tower solutions and benefits
- Collection and analysis of comprehensive internal and external data enables better procurement strategies and decisions, based on more reliable information about: supplier performance, savings, customer satisfaction, orders, deliveries, prices, indices and spending
- Collaboration with suppliers within the control tower platform improves data quality and enables fact-based decision making, smoother workflows and a more agile and resilient supply chain
Manufacturing
Challenges
Unreliable and scattered production data make it difficult to properly analyse operations, and to assess which data to use and who to involve in improvement initiatives.
Control tower solutions and benefits
Gathering all production data into a single platform facilitates overall equipment efficiency (OEE) improvement initiatives, root cause analyses, predictive maintenance to reduce machine failures, and objective site comparisons.
Warehousing and distribution
Challenges
- Blind spots on product and shipment locations and status
- Unexpected events during delivery leading to late or ‘missing’ shipments, or incorrect order shipments
- Poor product handling in transit, leading to damaged products (fragile, cold chain, etc.) or theft
- Rising customer expectations for deliveries
Control tower solutions and benefits
- (Near) real time data collection and analysis, across internal and external sources, combined with IoT monitoring, enables visibility of products and shipments at all times
- Collaboration with all logistics stakeholders within the control tower platform improves data visibility and quality, providing better warehousing and shipment reliability, and agile exceptions management
Control towers deliver ESG data and insights
Limited visibility on ESG (environmental, social and governance) parameters makes it difficult to effectively address potential ESG challenges such as emissions, product and operations environmental risks, waste disposal, internal and supplier labour policies, etc.
In its simplest set-up, a control tower can help provide the transparency you need to improve ESG compliance and reporting. Integrating and normalising data from various sources and presenting it in a centralised control tower dashboard facilitates accurate ESG reporting to meet the requirements of different ESG frameworks and regulations.
Control towers can also facilitate the creation of fact-based practices and policies. For example, monitoring supplier ESG performance via a control tower helps companies assess risks and provide insights into supply chain opportunities. Suppliers showing poor ESG performance can be identified and corrective actions can be taken. Additionally, companies can calculate transport emissions, waste or environmental risks, or audit internal operations and suppliers, based on real data rather than industry averages.
What’s in it for you?
The ROI of a supply chain control tower implementation can be significant, making it a worthwhile investment for organisations looking to optimise their supply chain operations, reduce costs and improve efficiency.
By delivering (near) real time visibility and control over the supply chain, along with comprehensive data, insights and scenarios, a control tower can help build a more resilient supply chain, enabling companies to identify and mitigate risks, such as supplier disruptions, weather-related events, and geopolitical issues. Moreover, it can deliver the information you need to boost your ESG performance — and reputation.
Business drivers - Operational impact
The ROI of investing in sustainable value chain can come from operational aspects
PwC can help you design the control tower YOU need
There’s no one-size-fits-all control tower to enable you to build a more data-driven supply chain. It’s about conceiving and designing a platform optimised for your business. About finding the right solution, using off-the-shelf and customised technologies, according to what will work for your data, operations, people and supply network.
Our unique Business, eXperience and Technology (BXT) approach means that we bring our expertise, insights, global network and partnerships into the mix. We can support you through the entire project or with individual modules, including business case review, control tower conception and design, selecting tools and providers, implementation, training, and maintenance and monitoring.
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