But the network can do this and more. If a company wants to work with a new supplier, and that supplier is in the network, onboarding is easier.

Also, certain types of alerts are better if they are based on network data rather than a company’s own data. For example, how long does one particular ocean carrier take to move goods from the port of Tianjin to Long Beach? If the answer is based on the data from all parties in the network, then the alert is more accurate. And the more data that is used, the better predictive alerting will be. Predictive alerting needs to be based on big data. “Earlier sensing leads to more agility,” Mr. Simonsen pointed out. “Many find out too late that a shipment is delayed. Their only choices are to expedite the shipment or admit to the customer it will be late.”

Visibility without decision support has limited value

Knowing that something bad is going to happen, if you can’t do anything about it, only serves to ruin your day. Supply chain personnel need to know what they should be working on. The Nexus solution allows various supply chain personnel, both internal to a company and among key trading partners, to get alerts that are pertinent to their responsibilities.

The work to resolve a problem is often executed in applications. The more applications that must be used, the more difficult it is to respond. In many cases, problems can be resolved in the Nexus solution.

Infor is building out the options on what a person with a designated job could do to resolve a problem or opportunity. In some cases, the resolution can be executed on the spot. In some cases, collaboration with partners or other internal departments is necessary to make and execute the best decision. Infor enables collaboration and execution with internal and external partners in its SCCN.

When a solution to an exception situation is based on prebuilt rules in an execution solution, we speak of an “orchestrated” solution. When a planning engine provides an answer, we have an “optimized” solution. Because both SCCNs and planning solutions model the end-to-end constraints and costs, determining which solution to use to solve an exception situation depends upon timing. SCCNs are better suited to address exception situations in the immediate and near-term execution window. Planning solutions are better suited to address exception situations in the medium to longer term timeframe. Learnings from SCCN orchestrations are shared with planning solutions to optimize future planning with real-world feedback. Infor is working to more tightly integrate its SCCN and planning solutions. “Our goal, Mr. Simonsen concluded, “is to update the supply chain planning model based on what is happening in the network model.”

AUTHOR

STEVE BANKER
Vice President of Supply Chain Services,
ARC Advisory Group

A version of this article first appeared on Forbes.com February 9, 2021.