VISUALIZATION
APS in simple terms is being
able to visualize your business
(supply chain) from
different perspectives. The
future
of APS lies in how
sophisticated technology can
be
employed to provide insights
on how well a business is
performing and could perform
given changes to the
supply chain. The purpose of
this talk is to paint a mosaic
of perspectives about APS.
It will provide practitioners
with a list of features they
should be looking for in
the tools they select and
enhancements they should
expect in the coming years.
INTRODUCTION-SOLVING A
BUSINESS
PROBLEM
The central business problem
is making better decisions,
[f we diagnose the
decision-making process, it
is a simple
process—gathering
information, making
decisions, and execution.
The deployment of APS
fundamentally purports
to improve each of these
steps in different ways,
but primarily the second
step.
Automating a decision is
really a misnomer. Rather,
there are typically
thousands of options on how
to address
various business issues. APS
strives to help analyze
many more options than could
be manually
performed. Automating the
analysis process (making it
easier and faster) provides
the opportunity to expand
the scope of the available
options and find even better
answers.
SUPPLY CHAIN VISION
At the highest levels,
businesses should know
precisely how much resources
are required, all along
their supply
chain, to meet the projected
market demand. Further,
they should know their
current physical capability
with
existing resources.
SPEED AND AUTOMATION
Of course, the balance
between required and
existing
resources is a dynamic
situation. Market conditions
can
change rapidly. The supply
chain can also suffer
reliability issues.
Business has to be able to
plan for predictable
and unplanned situations.
The truth is business
should be watching the
trends and impact of
changes, more closely than
they do today. The primary
reason
they don't is the difficulty
of the task and the
perceived
value-added for the time
spent.
Clearer visibility of
physical capability includes
having
an acute understanding about
the lead times for
making critical changes to
the supply chain. If a decision
to adjust resources is made
within the lead time of
a resource, then the
business is behind the curve
and
will miss opportunities. The
business that seizes more
opportunities, by
definition, is the industry
leader.
The natural conclusion is
that speed is key—watching
the situation closer (more
often) and having the
ability to analyze more
situations faster.
Continued