Supply Chain Resilience in Action: V-Shaped Recovery by the Book

Digital connections in the supply chain "take-in" the heartbeat of the inbound supply chain.
The more a supply chain is fragmented internationally, and the more lead times of items and material are different from each other, the more volatility is introduced in the system.

This level of swings is unprecedented, but they put a magnifying glass in the resilience of a real-time, digital supply chain.

Over the past months, we have experienced one of the most intense case studies of this volatility since we have been able to start to measure it in supply networks.

But measuring is one thing: As we all know, it’s not by definition the fittest that survive but the most adaptable. Track and trace through a Control Tower will give you the information to check the performance but will not help to turn the situation around. Integrated Planning and Adaptive Execution in a single operating model will provide it.

At Quyntess, we have been promoting this for several years. However, the effects have never been more convincing in our dashboards than those of the past months.

The Numbers
The graph below defines how a 250 supplier - 8 factories – 25 distributor network absorbed and rebounded the past months

Output shipped

Supplier Order Adjustments

Supplier shipping adjustments

This level of swings is unprecedented, but they put a magnifying glass in the resilience of a real-time digital supply chain.

With 140.000 underlying handling unit movements, any supply chain relying on pdf’s to be sent by e-mail would show much more bull-whip effect and not a V-shaped recovery from the book as displayed in the first graph.

As we are now going into a 2nd wave and at some places a 3rd wave with more dispersed timings and more local measures, the complexity of adaptive execution will only increase, while most companies have smaller buffers.

Moving Forward in 2021
The correct action for any company that has a supply chain that is 30-60% digital today is to go all-in to expedite this transformation and pull it forward on the “things to do in the next five years” list.

We are providing the knowledge and tools to do this as a service and have the evidence to back it up. Ask our customers in some of the most affected supply chains today how they feel about their resilience compared to their peers.

You had to do this anyway. Just do it now.