Transparency in Global Supply Chain Networks — Methods and Tools for Integrated Supply Chain Event Management

Abstract

The complexity of logistics networks increases constantly. The efforts of large companies and corporations to outsource and globalize lead to a permanent change in logistical structures. Linear supply chains give rise to complex value chains with network characteristics. Partners involved in the supply chain network — suppliers, customers, and logistics service providers — are integrated more deeply in the value-adding process. Along with vertical integration comes the partners’ interdependence upon one another. Unforeseeable bottlenecks in logistics procedures — or even their complete failure — can even bring the whole supply chain to its knees in extreme cases. The consequences of such events are well known: Confirmed delivery promises to customers either cannot be kept or can only be kept at such a disproportionately high expense that the originally intended cost advantage to be attained from vertical integration quickly becomes the exact reverse. To minimize the risks of availability and failure along with the resulting risk of customer dissatisfaction, it is necessary for logistics processes to be guided efficiently. Or to put it another way: Companies that globalize their business processes in whole or in part and simultaneously outsource them to external partners on the basis of out-tasking models need not only to plan all steps diligently but also to monitor their scheduled implementation continuously. To manage this, new methods and tools for Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM) can help to monitor the progress of business processes and report any deviations from plans in a timely fashion.