What is a supply chain control tower?

Supply chain executives are under enormous pressure to provide customers with what they need, when and where they need it, while also optimizing supply operations and achieving cost-saving goals. This is especially challenging in times of unpredictable yet inevitable vulnerabilities and disruptions.

A smarter control tower should provide end-to-end visibility across the supply chain, particularly into unforeseen external events. It should use advanced technologies, such as AI with machine learning, to help you break down data silos, reduce or eliminate manual processes and get real-time actionable insights.

A smarter control tower enables collaboration across teams and trading associates and preserve organizational knowledge to improve and accelerate decision-making and outcomes. Ultimately, this helps you better predict disruptions, improve resiliency, manage exceptions and respond to unplanned events.

Logistics/transportation control towers offer advance shipping notifications, delivery data and track-and-trace information, as well as visibility into inbound and outbound logistics.

Fulfillment control towers specialize in assisting package shipments, and are designed to help expedite orders while reducing the overall cost-to-serve.

Inventory control towers enable real-time insights into inventory management, with special emphasis on preventing inventory stock-outs and shortages.

Supply assurance control towers ensure that there’s an adequate supply available, more supply is planned for delivery and other matters related to supply.

E2E supply chain control towers are engineered to provide visibility across internal and external systems and processes, with applications for various departments or entities.

World events have driven home the need to strengthen resilience across global supply chains. As businesses start to emerge and reopen, the day-to-day challenges that are faced by supply chain and fulfillment leaders are being amplified by enormous disruptions in supply and demand.

The need to act quickly has never been more crucial. To respond effectively, companies need real-time intelligence and actionable recommendations to help mitigate disruptions and risk.

That’s best achieved with purpose-built control towers that optimize core supply chain functions. For example, a purpose-built control tower could give you essential real-time insights to manage inventory more effectively.

When enabled by AI and machine learning, a supply chain control tower enables end-to-end visibility across inventory silos and disparate systems, from raw material availability and supplier orders to the last mile of customer delivery.

It provides an accurate, real-time, available-to-promise inventory to drive improved decision-making and outcomes. This aids in predicting possible vulnerabilities and disruptions and understanding the upstream and downstream impacts, enabling a more rapid response.

An effective supply chain control tower depends on quality data, which directly influences the level of visibility that can be achieved, as well as the output of insights.

For data to be useful, it must first be usable. Practical and actionable outputs ensure that data is understandable and applicable to common activities and problems.

Deploying a control tower typically requires much planning, significant changes in operation and a concerted effort to get away from existing mindsets.