Should we focus on enhancing the supply chain as a whole or move into analyzing its components and search for improvements opportunities?

By analysing each component of the supply chain and make improvements you are in a way enhancing the whole supply chain. But to ensure each improvements to any components of the supply chain will result to the enhancement of the supply chain as a whole, you should have a common understanding of the goal. Are you into increasing the profit more than satisfying your customers or the other way around?

To elaborate this let's say you have3 components in a supply chain. Procurement, Production and Warehousing/Distribution. If the3 components have different understanding of the goal, procurement might go to into buying less quality materials but cheaper. Yes, there will be a cost savings for this, but imagine the effect on this if production use these materials, warehouse deliver to customers and in no time the end product breaks. Do you think customers will be happy?

First of all, enhancing programs to be taken as a whole, otherwise, gain in one area may lead to loss in another. Best approach is a top-down one, where a combined objective can be drilled down to component specific targets, and we can take improvement initiative to meet those targets. All inititiative must benefit all the stakeholders in a supply chain .

It enables us to use the analysis of components and use the following procedure by giant companies

 My suggestion to use ABC "Activity Based Cost" approach, as we should define the main activity

related to Supply chain 

* Procurement*

* Logistics

* Stores 

Firstly, analyze the components (Supply Planning, Procurement and logistics) and search for improvement opportunities in these components. Then integrate the improvement opportunities in Supply chain process to the max. extent possible depending on capacity and resources available- that is how the supply chain process as a whole will be enhanced  

All depends on the size and complexity of your supply chain. 

Hello Team,

How about being able to get your whole business ecosystem interconnected to exchange tasks, walled communications and microbiological and not having to exchange logins and passwords to accomplish it? Each partner and their employees logs into a common online solution and hand out projects and tasks from minute one.