Supply Chain Management – Using APM and BTM to Optimize Logistics
Almost every business today uses some form of supply chain
management. For smaller business, this may be as simple as placing orders for
materials that are needed to perform a job and managing a small inventory. But
as businesses grow and become more interdependent upon other businesses, supply
chain management becomes an absolute necessity if the business is to operate
profitably, minimize inventory carrying costs and meet changing market demands.
Supply chain management deals with a number of logistical
issues. Configuring the distribution network, developing strategies for product
distribution, balancing trade-offs so that operations are the most efficient
and effective as possible may remain primarily activities managed by
individuals, but many areas of supply chain management have become increasingly
computer dependent. Integrating information such as forecasts, inventory, and
transportation are just some of the many aspects of supply chain management
which are functions that computers are able to perform far more effectively
than individuals.
Many firms use an approach called CFAR or Collaborative
Planning Forecasting and Replenishment to provide the supply chain partners
with visibility of forecasted demand in order to satisfy future needs. The process for obtaining this visibility is
done by sharing sales forecasts and supply planning information between trading
partners. By following this approach
supply chain partners operate in synch.
As a result, they are able to minimize their inventory carrying costs at
the same time they improve the quality of service and availability of product
to their customers. Essentially, buyers
and sellers are working together to satisfy their end customer.
Application Performance Management (APM)
Application performance management allows a business to monitor
the performance of the various business processes and their underlying IT
transactions that implement the supply chain. Typically, there are many
different applications within the IT stack used to run a supply chain
management process. Some applications
may handle RSS feeds which are subscriptions of various industry forecasts. Other
applications may manage the inventory of raw materials, keeping track of
quantities and locations. While, still other applications may keep track of
work in progress. And there are applications that handle inventory information
about finished goods. In addition to these applications, it is typical for the
common business to have applications that manage cash flow.
The existence of these multiple composite applications makes
the IT environment extremely complex with lots of IT transaction dependencies
that must be available and performing in order for the supply chain process to
be effective. It is physically impossible to evaluate how well each application
is performing without real-time monitoring to provide visibility into each
transaction as they traverse each application.
All of these applications need to be able to share
information with each other; otherwise the information provided will fail to
support efficient supply chain management. The information would be fragmented,
and failed to provide an accurate picture of the entire supply chain.
Business Transaction Management
Transactions form the basis of every single application.
Each piece of data is a transaction. What happens to a piece of data as it
moves from one application to another is vital information. Business
transaction management gives you visibility into the key questions any supply
chain manager is asking.
- Where is my shipment?
- Have the orders been
placed?
- What is current demand?
- Where do supplies need to
be delivered?
- What forecasts have the
potential of impacting the business?
- Have vendors been paid?
These are all questions that business transaction management
provides answers to, because every transaction is traceable. Business
Transaction Management (BTM) provides 360° visibility into the entire IT
infrastructure. No application connected to it is overlooked. What happened;
when it happened; and why it happened is available through convenient role-based
dashboards allowing for forensic evidence analysis to determine the root cause
of any failures.
Complex Event Processing
Complex Event Processing (CEP) is a tool that when used as
the core of a BTM solution enables predictive alerting about problems before
they impact the supply chain process. When augmented by business rules in a
situational management approach, it can even enable the prevention of
problems.
What makes a complex event processing (CEP) engine capable
of providing the answers that are needed by supply chain managers? The engine
must be designed to handle supply chain events such as order flow, inventory,
incoming shipments and outgoing shipments. The right system will be able to
handle orders, warehouse inventory, delivery and service scheduling,
synchronization of inventory and supplies, logistics and finished product management,
etc.
The CEP must also have capability for inference which
enables it to predict changes in the environment that will impact efficient IT
function by analyzing the patterns in the event cloud. It must be able to
identify and learn as it changes what is business normal vs. business abnormal
for your business. It should be able to identify when software resources are
underutilized. It should be able to identify an emerging application issue. And
it should assist IT departments with troubleshooting complex issues such as
slow transactions or logic errors.
When it comes to supply chain management, Nastel
Technologies has developed an application
performance management/business transaction management solution that is
recognized by some of the largest manufacturers, retail businesses and financial
service firms in the world as the solution they depend upon. AutoPilot is an
APM/BTM solution that assures performance and scalability. The answers that a
supply chain manager needs to have answered are available instantly.
When a new supply chain scenario needs to be tested,
AutoPilot's complex
event processing (CEP) engine makes it easy to see how changes in the
environment will impact the supply chain. If a new application is being
considered, AutoPilot makes it possible to perform trial runs through the every
application impacted, so that rollout is smooth and trouble-free.
Putting AutoPilot in place to monitor supply
chain management assures high performance and availability of this essential
business process. It means that supply chain managers have a more powerful tool
to work with as they handle all the logistics of keeping a company operating at
peak profitability.
Denise Rutledge enjoys researching and writing about
technology products. She writes on many financial and business topics,
including software solutions that impact business performance in the financial
industry. In addition to working with clients to develop website content,
she writes on how to make a living as a writer on her writing blog.
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