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AirClic MP Platform wins two Mobile Star Awards. AirClic MP Platform has won two Mobile Star Awards™ from MobileVillage in the categories of Enterprise Software for Supply Chain and Enterprise Software for GPS & Location Based Services. Read more
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Better Visibility Lowers Supply Chain Risk
Ever since the phrase “just-in-time inventory” entered the business lexicon decades ago, companies of all kinds have made a priority of improving their supply chains. Once a remote, behind-the-scenes business function, the supply chain now commands the attention of corporate management at the highest levels.
“Top organizations incorporate the supply chain into their business strategy and devote significant attention to extracting the value,” writes Mark Willford, a partner with consulting firm Accenture. By keeping inventories lean and carefully integrating supply chain systems with other business processes, companies worldwide have both increased operational efficiency and improved financial performance.
Along with the improvements, however, comes risk. While rigorous management has helped reduce costs, it has also left those lean supply chains vulnerable to disruption. Anything from hurricanes to transportation delays to cash-flow problems at a key supplier can interrupt the supply chain and cause negative consequences to ripple through an organization.
To address these risks, companies are seeking greater visibility into their supply chains. For building products supplier Silver Line Windows, that visibility is provided by a mobile process solution from AirClic. (See Customer Recap) If, for example, a window gets broken in transit, that information is captured immediately upon delivery. The process of ordering the replacement window is set in motion before the driver even leaves the customer’s loading dock.
In the pharmaceutical industry, meanwhile, supply chain control can literally be a matter of life and death. To combat a rising tide of counterfeiting and product tampering, “leading companies are looking to the supply chain for solutions,” said an in-depth report in the August, 2005 issue of Inbound Logistics. Here, supply chain visibility in the form of a secure “chain of custody” is critical. Though still in the pilot-program stage, the industry is turning to electronic product code (EPC) and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to track the movement of drugs from manufacturer to wholesaler to pharmacy. According to an industry spokesman, these tools will eventually permit “the entire supply chain to track product movement electronically, making it easier to spot and quarantine suspicious products … before they reach the consumer.”
Real-time visibility has thus emerged as a vital factor in maximizing supply chain performance and reliability across a range of industries. But as with all successful business strategies, today’s innovation becomes tomorrow’s standard practice. So the sooner that any business incorporates real-time visibility into its supply chain, the longer that business will enjoy the benefits—and the competitive advantage—that it offers.
GPS Rising
The market for GPS (global positioning system) applications seems to be growing with every time the world turns. What was once simply a clever new gadget has become an increasingly indispensable tool for virtually any business with mobile operations. And as businesses become more familiar with them, GPS devices and the applications that support them are being used more often by more people to do more things.
The Accenture Digital Forum recently observed that “Companies that manage cargo fleets love GPS because it lets them monitor the whereabouts of vehicles along their routes. This translates into significant savings and boosts on-time deliveries.” Those cost savings come from several factors, and high on the list is fuel. Recent record-high fuel prices have provided a powerful incentive to conserve for any business that operates a fleet of vehicles.
The August 2005 issue of Inbound Logistics recounted the experience of a Texas-based retailer that implemented a sophisticated, GPS-based system to give managers greater control over where their trucks went and the routes drivers took to get there. “We saw a 25 percent reduction in miles,” said the company’s vice president of transportation.
But just knowing where vehicles are is not enough. Organizations are finding that they also need to know the who, what and how much, regarding their assets in the field. GPS data, when enhanced by information about what people are actually accomplishing, helps businesses improve performance in a number of ways. It gives accurate, up-to-the-minute estimates of pick-up or delivery times for better customer service. It also gives managers a powerful tool to examine the real-world activities of their mobile operations, learning which routes are most efficient, which customers are most profitable, and which of their mobile workers are doing the best job.
No business with mobile operations can long afford to put off investments in GPS and other mobile IT applications. As a recent AMR research study put it, “Mobile technology is currently reaching the all-important critical mass. For organizations that plan to make a strategic investment in mobile technology, now is the time for IT to sit with business management and create a mobile strategy.”
Silver Line Windows
To survive and prosper in the highly competitive building products industry takes not only excellent product quality but efficient, reliable business processes. For New Jersey-based Silver Line Windows, that means, among other things, timely delivery of approximately 500,000 units per month to retailers and distributors.
Silver Line, a leading maker of vinyl windows and doors, wanted to upgrade its business processes and set ambitious goals for itself in terms of customer service. The company compared mobile process solutions from three different vendors. After rigorous testing and listening to feedback from its drivers in the field, the company chose AirClic. The AirClic solution enabled Silver Line to record and process backorders—and invoice customers—all at the time of delivery. AirClic also offered low cost and unmatched ease of use, with drivers being trained in an average of only 10-20 minutes! In addition, thanks to the paperless system of backorder processing and inventory enabled by AirClic, Silver Line estimates that it will save a hefty $500,000 per year in costs.