The New Year is right around the corner and many of us are making preparations for 2011 as we close out the end of the 2010, although it is difficult to believe another year has already come and gone.

As time flies, so does the pace of technology, and today’s supersonic speed has supply chain technology challenged more than ever.

The faster pace of evolving business process requirements (which drive higher productivity and customer service enhancements), increased budget constraints, as well as expensive, aging legacy software and hardware architectures all add to the challenge. They negatively impact the performance and value derived from a supply chain technology investment.

With these challenges and evolutions in mind, it’s necessary to be thinking ahead with both an eye toward tactical efficiency, as well as an eye toward the emergence of new technologies.

Think speed and short term: From a tactical efficiency perspective, upgrades to existing supply chain execution software applications and underlying technology stacks are immediate challenges that must be addressed in the next 12-24 months.

Many organizations are running supply chain applications that have seen limited to no upgrades since they were installed between 2002 and 2006. Over that period, many organizations continued to adapt and improve operations to the extent they could leverage the older supply chain technology platforms.

However, as the clock ticks on these older platforms, the integration complexities maintenance costs and business risk of obsolesce only grow. At some point in the very near future, these organizations are going to face the prospect of what could be an expensive upgrade.

To date, supply chain application providers have consistently driven customer enhancements into baseline feature sets, leveraged new technology in software development and hardware architecture, and developed more robust integration strategies built out of expanded suites of supply chain applications.

Think IT innovation and long term: From a strategic and emerging technology perspective, one area that seems to have everyone’s attention right now is Software as a Service (SaaS)-based software applications. Certain areas of the supply chain are prime candidates for the emerging trends in SaaS-based software applications.

The convergence of constrained capital, limited IT resources, and demands for higher productivity functionality creates an opportunity for SaaS software application technologies to extend their footprint within the realm of supply chain technology.

The current short-term business mandate of driving increased productivity and technology responsiveness will only continue in the coming years. Technology managers in supply chain must identify the appropriate short-term tactical strategies that meet immediate business needs to stay competitive in the market.

At the same time, they must be prepared to adopt and embrace emerging technologies, such as SaaS deployment models before they become outmaneuvered by their competitors.

To plan 2011, check out the following brief list of supply chain technology initiatives:

• Assess remaining legacy supply chain applications in your portfolio and determine gap and business case in relation to commercial technology alternatives.
• Assess existing technology infrastructure (processing, integration tools, communication, etc.) and determine upgrade prioritization.
• As forecast accuracy and demand variability continue to drive significant supply chain challenges, determine if your current tools support your process requirements.
• Look for opportunities to enable or enhance internal and external collaboration as a means to drive improvements in customer service.
• Evaluate your current transportation strategies – Available Transportation Management System technologies remain one of the smallest deployed technology solutions, despite emerging low cost / high value opportunities for deployment in many organizations.
• Identify WMS-enabling downstream productivity-accuracy opportunities, where applicable: labor management, voice-directed picking, integrated slotting management, pre-manifested picking, etc.
• Establish and track technology-related benchmarks against competitors (application adoption, event management, integration tool use, visibility dashboards, etc.).
• When contemplating upgrading supply chain execution applications, perform a gap assessment of processes against the proposed upgrade functionality.
• Consider opportunities to competitively bid what have been traditional application upgrades for supply chain execution applications, especially when upgrades can’t support prevailing process requirements.
• Identify future opportunities, such as visibility, TMS, GTM, etc., to pursue incremental implementation of transaction-based (SaaS) supply chain applications.

What are other tactics and strategies are you using to plan for the upcoming year?

-- Kevin


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Tags: wms, supply chain, technology